



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



READINGS IN 
AMERICAN HISTORY 



BY 

DAVID SAVILLE MUZZEY, Ph.D. 

BARNARD COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK 



Out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, 
traditions, private records, fragments of stories, 
passages of books, and the like, do we save and 
recover somewhat from the deluge of time. 

Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO 



COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY 
DAVID SAVILLE MUZZEY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
115.9 



OCT -7 191' 



(,1NN AND CD.Ml'ANV- I'KO- 
PRIETOI^ • BOSTON ■ U.S.A. 

©CI.A410933 






PREFACE 

The use of selected material from primary sources to 
illustrate and enliven the narrative of the textbook has 
become so general and has proved so valuable that there 
is no further need for apology or explanation in the 
introduction of a book of historical readings. In select- 
ing the material for the present volume the author has 
sought to give the student a sense of the number and 
variety of sources — acts of Congress, decisions of courts, 
proclamations and messages of presidents, records of 
debates, party platforms, charters, pamphlets, memoirs, 
diaries, letters, plays, poems, etc. — that are available for 
the illustration of American history. 

A unique feature of the book is the frequent employ- 
ment of two or more extracts for the elucidation of a 
single topic, these extracts either furnishing cumulative 
evidence from different sources or presenting conflicting 
or divergent views of different authors. For example, Nos. 
14, 17, 37, 40, 45, 68, 81, 91, 93, 104 illustrate the type 
of the "cumulative group of extracts," while Nos. 24, 30, 
34, 39, 59, 62, 74, 94, 106, 114, 116 represent the 
" conflicting group." The value of such groups is twofold : 
they not only help to save the source-book from the gen- 
erally merited reproach o^ scrappiness, but they furnish 
the student with just what he is likely to miss in the 
study of the textbook, namely, the realization that on 
every important historical and social question there is and 
has been a variety of opinion and judgment. 



iv Preface 

Although the readings can be used to advantage with 
any textbook on the subject, they have been planned 
especially as a companion volume to the author's " Amer- 
ican History," following the text chapter by chapter and 
section by section. There are constant references to the 
History in the notes, and beneath each marginal title of 
the Readings a number in brackets refers to the page of 
the History where the subject illustrated by the reading 
is treated in the narrative. 

A few of the extracts are taken from secondary works ; 
and due acknowledgment is made to D. Appleton and 
Company for the passages from Professor McMaster 
(Nos. 45, 70), to the Century Company for the quotations 
from De Tocqueville (Nos. 6^ , 74) and Nicolay and Hay 
(No. 87), to Houghton Mifflin Company for the descrip- 
tion from John S. Wise (No. 95), to Charles Scribner's 
Sons for the pages from Robert Louis Stevenson (No. 
1 12), and to Messrs. Ziegler and McCurdy for the extracts 
from Alexander H. Stephens (Nos. 89, 97). 

It is hoped that the detailed Table of Contents will serve 
the teacher as a working bibliography of the sources of 
American history. It can be best supplemented by the 
comprehensive "Classified Bibliography" in Part II of 
Channing, Hart, and Turner's '' Guide to the Study and 
Reading of American History " (Ginn and Company, 
191 2). The reference in the case of each extract in the 
Readings is to the publication in which the source from 
which that extract is taken is most available for the 
teacher. Hence compilations of documents and editions of 
statesmen's works have been freely cited. The original 
spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and syntax (or the 
want of • it) have been left unchanged in the Readings. 



Preface v 

The author wishes to express his thanks to the efficient 
staff of the loan and reference departments of the Hbrary 
of Columbia University for their constant and willing 
courtesy in supplying his needs, and to Professor James 
Harvey Robinson, the general editor of this series of 
textbooks and readings, for his sympathetic interest and 
valued suggestions at all stages of the work. 

DAVID SAVILLE MUZZEY 

New York 



CONTENTS 
PART I 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ENGLISH 
CHAPTER I— THE NEW WORLD 

PAGE 

The Discovery of America 

1. Geography before Columbus 

Strabo, Geography, Book I, chap, iv, par. 6 3 

Seneca, il/^^m, Act II, 11. 371 ff 3 

PULCI, Morganti Alaggiore, Canto XXV, strophes 229, 230 4 
St. Ambrose, Hexaemeron, in Migne, Patrologia Latina, 

Vol. XIV, col. 123 4 

Thomas Wright, Popular Treatises on Science 7vritten 

during the Middle Ages, London, 1841, PP- i-3 • • 5 
Alexander of Neckam, De Natura Rencvi, ed. Thos. 

Wright, in Rolls Series, Book II, chap. 98, p. 183 . 5 

2. The '' Capitulation" of April 17, 1492 

FiLSON Young, Christopher Columbus, Vol. II, Appen- 
dix c, pp. 336-337 ^ 

3. Columbus' letter to Luis de Santangel, February 1 5, i493 

Original Narratives of Early American Histoiy, Vol. I, 
ed. Olson and Bourne, The Northmen, Columbus 
and Cabot, pp. 263-271 7 

4. Columbus complains to his son Diego, December 1, 1504 

John Boyd Thacher, Christopher Columbus, Vol. Ill, 

PP- 318-325 ^ 

A Century of Exploration 

5. Magellan's voyage around the world, 1519-1522 

Pigapheta's Narrative, in Hakluyt Society Publications, 

Vol. LII, pp. 35-163 " 



vn 



viii Contents 

PAGE 

6. De Soto's journey to the Mississippi, 1 538-1 542 

Richard Hakluyt, Voyages^ T?-avels, and Discoveries, 

Vol. V, pp. 476-550 15 

7. A Tribute to Queen Elizabeth as the " Mother of Eng- 

lish Sea-greatnesse," 1625 
Hakhiyhis Posiiimiis, or Purchas, His Pilgrimes, ed. 

MacLehose, Glasgow, Vol. XIX, pp. 449-450 . . iS 

8. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's patent, 1578 

Richard Hakluyt (see No. 6), Vol. Ill, pp. 174-176 19 

9. An encouragement to English colonization, 1584 

Richard Hakluyt, A Discourse Concerning Western 
Planting, in Maine Historical Society's Documen- 
tary History, Series II, Vol. II, pp. 101-161 ... 20 

CHAPTER II— THE ENGLISH COLONIES 

The Old Dominion 

10. An English gentleman's impression of Jamestown in 

1619 
Original Narratives (see No. 3), Vol. Ill, ed. L. G. 

Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, pp. 281-287 24 

11. Virginia changes masters, 165 1 -1662 

Ebenezer Hazard, Historical Collections of State 

Papers, Vol. I, pp. 556-558 26 

W. W. WYMX'iiG, Statutes at Large . . ■ of Virginia, Vol. I, 

P- 530 27 

Ebenezer Hazard, op. cit. Vol. II, pp. 607-611 ... 28 

12. An eyewitness' account of Bacon's rebellion, 1675- 

1676 

Peter Force, Tracts . . . relating to the Origin, Settle- 
ment, and Progress of the Colofiies iti N'orth America, 
Vol. I, No. 8 30 

The New England Settlements 

13. The coming of the Pilgrims, 1620 

Original Na7-ratives (see No. 3), Vol. VI, ed. W. T. 
Davis, Bradford's History of Plimouth Plantation, 
pp. 32-107 passim 34 



Contents ix 

PAGE 

14. Illustrations of Puritan character 

Thomas Hutchinson, History of the Colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, Vol. I, pp. 1 51-153 37 

Samuel Whiting, Life of fohn Cotton, in Alexander 
Young's Chronicles of the First Planters of the 
Colony of Massachusetts Bay, pp. 423-430 ... 39 

Cotton Mather's Diary, in Massachusetts Historical 
Society Collections, Series VII, Vol. VIII, pp. 3-5, 
252-258 40 

15. ''Independency" in Massachusetts, 1664 

Thomas Hutchinson (see No. 14), Vol. I, pp. 537-542, 

appendix 42 

16. The " Glorious Revolution " of 1689 

Peter Force (see No. 12), Vol. IV, No. 10, An Account 

of the Late Revolution itt New Ettgland .... 46 

The Hutchinson Papers, in Publications of the Prince 

Society, Vol. II, pp. 314-317 49 

The Proprietary Colonies 

17. Two accounts of early New York, 1643, 1661 

The fesuit Relations and Allied Documents, ed. R. G. 
Thwaites, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 105-111 50 

Original N^arratives (see No. 3), Vol. VIII, ed. J. F. 
Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, pp. 423- 
424 53 

18. Rivalry between Dutch and English in the Connecticut 

valley, 1627- 1650 
Massachusetts Historical Society Collections for the Year 

I7g4, Vol. Ill, pp. 51-52 . . • 55 

Documents Relative to the Colonial History of . . . Netv 

York, ed. E. B. O'Callaghan, Vol. I, pp. 287-289 57 
Thomas Hutchinson (see No. 14), Vol. I, pp. 514-515 59 

19. New Netherland becomes New York, 1664 

Original N'arratives (see No. 3), Vol. VIII, pp. 451-453 60 
Dociiments Relative to the Colonial History of . . . New 

York (see No. 18), Vol. II, pp. 250-253 62 

20. The rise of the Quakers, about 1650 

Robert Proud, History of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 

1797, Vol. I, pp. 28-61 passim 63 



X Contents 

PAGE 

Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Series IV, 

Vol. IX, p. 159 66 

21. Peopling a new colony, 1 681-1683 

Samuel Hazard, Registo- of Pennsylvania, Vol. I, 
PP- 306-308 67 

Original Nari'atives (see No. 3), Vol. X, ed. A. C. 
Meyers, Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West 
New Jersey, and Delaware, pp. 379-397 .... 69 

The Colonies in the Eighteenth Century 

22. The First Navigation Act, 1660 

William Macdonald, ed. Select Charters illustrative 

of American History, 1606-177 5, PP- 110-115 . . 72 

23. Observations of two foreign visitors, 1 748-1 749, 

1 759-1 760 

Peter Kalm, Travels into N'oHh America, tr. J. R. 

Foster, London, 1770, Vol. I, pp. 260-265 ... 75 

Andrew Burnaby, Travels . . . in NoHh America, 
ed. John Pinkerton, London, 18 12, General Collec- 
tion of Travels, pp. 750-752 77 

24. Harvard College in the early days, 1642, 1680, 1741 

Netv England'' s First Fi'tiits, London, 1643, pp. 12-15 . ^o 
The fournal of fasper Bankers, ed. H. C. Murphy, in 
Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society, 

Vol. I, pp. 384-385 82 

JosiAH Quincy, History of Haiva7-d University, Vol. II, 

pp. 88-89 83 



CHAPTER HI — THE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE FOR 
NORTH AMERICA 

The Rise of New France 

25. La Salle's voyage down the Mississippi, January to 
April, 1682 

Le Clercq, The First Establishmoit of the Faith in New 

France, tr. John G. Shea, Vol. II, pp. 161-179 . . 85 



Contents xi 

PAGE 

26. Dongan and Denonville, 1685- 1687 

Documents relative to the Colonial History of New York 
(see No. 18), Vol. IX, pp. 292-293; Vol. Ill, 
pp. 456-472 87 

27. The Albany plan of union, 1754 

The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. A. H. Smyth, 

Vol. I, pp. 386-389; Vol. Ill, pp. 197-199 ... 94 

The Fall of New France 

28. Washington's embassy to the French forts, 1753 

The Writings of George Washington, ed. W. C. Ford, 

Vol. I, pp. 11-40 98 

29. The fall of Quebec, September 13, 1759 

John Knox, An Historical fonrnal of the Campaigns 
in North America for the Years ly^y-iybo. Vol. II, 
pp. 6^73 104 

Thomas Jeffreys, The Natural and Civil Histofy of the 
French Dominions in North ajid South A^nerica, 
PP- 133-136 106 



PART II 

THE SEPARATION OF THE COLONIES FROM 
ENGLAND 

CHAPTER IV — BRITISH RULE IN AMERICA 

The Authority of Parliament in the Colonies 

30. The rights of the colonies 

Thomas Pownall, The Administration of the Colonies, 

London, 1764, pp. x, 40-85 iii 

Thomas Hutchinson, Letters, etc., Boston, 1773, 

pp. 8, 9, 16 114 

Stephen Hopkins, The Rights of Colonies Examined, 

in Colonial Records of Rhode Island, ed. J. R. 

Bartlett, Vol. VI, pp. 419-424 115 



xii Contents 

PAGE 

Taxation Without Representation 

3 1 . The truth about the Stamp Act 

Franklin, Works (see No. 27), Vol. VII, pp. 1 18-120 ii8 

32. The Circular Letter of Massachusetts Bay, 1768 

The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. H. A. Gushing, 

Vol. I, pp. 184-188 120 

John Almon, Pj-ior Documents, London, 1777, 

pp. 203-205 123 

33. The control of the purse strings, 1 768 

John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer, etc., pp. 69-80 125 

The Punishment of Massachusetts 

34. Conflicting reports of the conflict at Lexington, April 

19. 1775 
Paper in the Hancock-Clark House at Lexington, 

Massachusetts 128 

Nezi) Engla7id Historical and Genealogical Register, 

Vol. XXVII, p. 434 130 

Peter Force, American Archives, fourth series. 

Vol. II, pp. 488, 491 131 



CHAPTER V — THE BIRTH OF THE NATION 

The Declaration of Independence 

35. The final petition to King George III, July 8, 1775 

fournals of the Continental Congress, ed. W. C. Ford, 

Vol. II, pp. 1 58-161 133 

36. Thomas Paine's argument for independence, Janu- 

ary 10, 1776 

" Common Sense," in Paine's Writings, ed. M. D. 

Conway, Vol. I, pp. 84-101 passim 138 

37. The French alliance, 1778 

Charlemagne Tower, Jr., The Marquis de Lafayette 

in the American Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 184, 185 . 141 



Contents xiii 



PAGE 



Journals of the Contmental Congress (see No. 35), 

Vol. XI, pp. 449-453' 753. 756, 757 ^43 

-Franklin, Works (see No. 27), Vol. VIII, pp. 641-643 146 

The Revolutionary War 

38. George Rogers Clark's capture of Vincennes, Febru- 
ary 24, 1779 
William H. English, The Conquest of the North^vest, 

Vol. I, pp. 568-575, appendix 148 

The American Historical Reviezu (Documents), Vol. I, 

P-95 

Peace 



153 



39. The Tories 

Hezekiah Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolu- 

. tion, pp. 393-396 ^53 

Frank Moore, Diary of the American Revolution, 

Vol. II, pp. 166-168 156 

WiNTHROP Sargent, Loyal Verses . . . relating to the 

American Revolution, pp. 11-12 I57 

M. C. Tyler, Literary History of the American Revo- 
lution, Vol. II, pp. 124-125 159 



PART III 

THE NEW REPUBLIC 

CHAPTER VI — THE CONSTITUTION 

The Critical Period 

40. The new nation on trial 

Richard Price, Obset-vations on the Lfnportance of the 
American Revolution, London, 1785, pp. 1-8, 

84-85 163 

JosiAH Tucker, CuiBono? or an Inquiry, Gloucester, 

1781, pp. 93-96, 117-119 165 

Tench Coxe, A Viezv of the United States, London, 

1794, pp. 4, 5, 28-32 167 



xiv Contents 

PAGE 

41. Hamilton's plea for an adequate constitution, Septem- 

ber 3, 1780 

The Wo7-ks of Alexajider Hamilton^ ed. H. C. Lodge, 

Vol. I, pp. 213-219 168 

"A More Perfect Union " 

42. The constitutional convention. May to September, i 'j'^'j 

Journals of Congress (see No. 35), Vol. XII, p. 17 . . 172 
The American Historical Review (Documents), Vol. Ill, 

PP- 327-331 173 

Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Cojistitntion, 

ed. Jonathan Elliot, Vol. V, pp. 554, 556, 565 174 

Ibid. Vol. I, pp. 17-18 176 

43. Mason's argument against ratification, 1788 

Paniphlets on the Constitution^ ed. P. L. FoRD».pp. 329- 

332 177 

44. Jefferson's plan for the government of the West, i 784 

The Writings of Tho?nas fefferson, ed. P. L. Ford, 

Vol. Ill, pp. 429-432 180 

CHAPTER VII — FEDERALISTS AND REPUBLICANS 

Launching the Government 

45. America the land of opportunity 

Franklin, Works (see No. 27), Vol. VIII, pp. 603-614 183 
J. B. McM aster, History of the People of the United 

States, Vol. I, pp. 517-519 186 

La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Voyage dans les Etats- 

Unis, . . . 7795-/797, Vol. I, pp. 133-136 ... 187 

46. The inauguration of the government, 1789 

Washington, Works (see No. 28), Vol. XI, pp. 382- 

383 188 

The fournal of William Maclay, ed. E. S. Maclay, 

pp. 7, 9, 10, 74, 137, 138 190 

47. Jefferson versus Hamilton, i 791 -1792 

Jefferson, Works (see No. 44), Vol. V, pp. 284-287 . 192 
Hamilton, Wo7-ks (see No. 41), Vol. IX, pp. 513-535 194 



Contents xv 

PAGE 

The Reign of Federalism 

48. The neutrality proclamation, April 22, 1793 

Washington, Wo7'ks (see No. 28), Vol. XII, pp. 279- 

282 197 

49. The XYZ message, April 3, 1798 

Antials 0/ Cojigress, 5th Congress, Vol. Ill (ed. 1S51), 

PP- 3336-3345 200 

50. A plea for peace, October 2, 1 798 

Joel Barlow, Tico Letters to the Citizens of the United 

States, London, 1806, pp. 37-43 203 

51. The Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, 1798- 1799 

The Writings of James Madison, ed. G. Hunt, Vol. IX, 

PP- 326-331 205 

Elliot, Z>^/^«/<?.y (see No. 42), Vol. IV, p. 545 .... 208 

Jefferson, Works (see No. 44), Vol. VII, p. 290 . . 209 

Madison, Works (see above), Vol. IX, pp. 444-445 . 209 

52. Washington, appeal to Patrick Henry, January 15, 

1799 

Washington, Letters (privately printed by W. K. 
Bixby of St. Louis from original manuscripts), 
pp. 96-99 210 

The Jeffersonian Policies 

53. The discovery of the Columbia River, 1792 

Robert Green Low, The Histoiy of Oregon and Cali- 
fornia, appendix, pp. 434-436 212 

Old South Leaflets, Vol. VI, pp. 22-23 (No. 131) . . 214 

54. A petition of the inhabitants of Louisiana, 1804 

Annals of Congress, 8th Congress, 2d session (ed. 1852) 

appendix, pp. 1 597-1 608 214 

^^. The Lewis and Clark expedition, 1 803-1 806 

Original fonrnals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 

ed. R. G. Thwaites, Vol. VII, pp. 247-252, 298 . 218 



xvi Contents 

PAGE 

The War of 1812 

56. British and French aggressions, 1805-1807 

Ameyicau State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. II, 

PP- 749-750 222 

Ibid. Vol. Ill, pp. 16-19 224 

t^"]. " Mr. Clay's war," December 31, 181 1 

Annals of Congress, 12th Congress, ist session (ed. 

1853), pp. 599-602 227 

58. Madison's war message, June i, 181 2 

Messages and Papers of the Pi'esidents, ed. J. D. 

Richardson, Vol. I, pp. 499-504 229 



PART IV 

NATIONAL VERSUS SECTIONAL INTERESTS 

CHAPTER VIII— THE GROWTH OF A NATIONAL 

CONSCIOUSNESS 

" The Era of Good Feeling " 

59. The Supreme Court and the Constitution, 18 16-1824 

United States Reports, i Wheaton, 324-326, 343-344; 

4 Wheaton, 421, 432, 436; 9 Wheaton, 210-211 . 235 
Jefferson, Works (see No. 44), Vol. X, pp. 170-171 238 

The Monroe Doctrine 

60. The Florida dispute, 18 16-18 19 

Annals of Congress, 15th Congress, 2d session, appen- 
dix, p. 2153 ; ibid. pp. 2106-2107 239 

American State Papers (see No. 56), Vol. IV, pp. 539- 

545 • .... 241 

61. The Monroe Doctrine, December 2, 1823 

Messages and Papers (see No. 58), Vol. II, pp. 208-219 244 



r 

Contents xvii 



CHAPTER IX — SECTIONAL INTERESTS 

PAGE 

Facing Westward 

62. British opinions of America, 1 820-1 837 

The Edinburgh Review, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 78-80 . . 247 
Mrs. Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, 

pp. 140-142, 169-171, 230-232 249 

Captain Marryat, A Diary in Ajuerica, Vol. I, 

PP-8-23 251 

63. The river trade of New Orleans, 1 816-1840 

United States RepoH on Comme7xe and Navigation for 

1887, Part II, pp. 191-205 252 

The Favorite Sons 

64. Jockeying for the presidential race, 1824 

Memoirs of fohn Quincy Adams, Vol. VI, pp. 241-248, 

261, 265, 292, 332, 333, 464, 465, 483, 501, 504 . . 255 

An Era of Hard Feeling 

65. Benton's plea for the occupation of Oregon, 1825 

Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years' View, Vol. I, 

PP- 51-54 258 

The '' Tariff of Abominations " 

66. The protest of South Carolina against high tariff, 1828 

The Works of fohn C. Calhotcn, ed. R. K. Cralle, 

Vol. VI, pp. 1-15 261 



CHAPTER X — "THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON" 

Nullification 

67. Andrew Jackson, constitutional autocrat 

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. 

F. Bowen, 1898, Vol. I, pp. 532-533 265 

il/.?j-j'^^^j- «««' /"a/^n- (see No. 58), Vol. Ill, pp. 69-93 . 267 



xviii Contents 

68. The specter of disunion, 1830-1832 

Congressional Debates, Vol. VI, Part II (ed. 1830), 

P- 857 270 

W7'itings and Speeches of Daniel Webster {^zSXoxvzS. Edi- 
tion, 1903), Vol. VI, pp. 69, 75 272 

H. D. Capers, Life and Times of C. G. Memminger, 

pp. 46-48 275 

Senate Doai?nents, 22d Congress, 2d session. No. 30, 

PP- 3^39 276 

A New Party 

69. Early anecdotes of the railroad 

Frances Anne Butler, y*?/^;-;/^?/, Vol. I, pp. 161-172 278 
Harriet Martineau, Society in America, Vol. II, 

PP- 7-13 280 

70. Labor unrest in the thirties 

]\Ic Master's History (see No. 45), Vol. VII, pp. 220-223 282 
Dociimejita7y History of American Indicstrial Society, 

ed. Commons and Sumner, Vol. V, pp. 303-305 ; 

Vol. VI, pp. 87-90; Vol. V, pp. 61-63 .... 284 



PART V 

SLAVERY AND THE V^EST 
CHAPTER XI— THE GATHERING CLOUD 

Slavery in the Colonies 

71. The petition of the Georgia colonists for slavery, 1738 

Peter Force, Tracts (see No. 12), Vol. I, no. 4, 

PP- 37-41 291 

The Missouri Compromise 

72. The debate on the Missouri Compromise, 1820 

American Orations, ed. JoHNSTON-WooDiUJRN, Vol. II, 

pp. 34-62 294 



C 071 tents xix 

PAGE 

Annals of Congress, i6th Congress, ist session, Vol. I, 

pp. 391-415 299 

The Abolitionists 

73. A report from Liberia, 1828 

The African Repository and Colonial foumal, Vol. V, 

PP-3-9 301 

74. The " peculiar institution " 

{a) Hezekiah Niles, The Weekly Register, Vol. XXVII, 

P- 264 305 

{J}) Executive Documents, 19th Congress, 2d session. 

Vol. IV, p. 69, No. 59 307 

{c) Senate Docume^its, 20th Congress, ist session, 

Vol. Ill, pp. lo-i I, No. 81 307 

(d) D. F. Houston, A Critical Study of Nullification 

in South Cai'olina, pp. 51-52 309 

Alexis de Tocqueville (see No. 67), Vol. I, pp. 486- 

490 309 

CHAPTER XII — TEXAS 

The " Reoccupation " of Oregon and the '' Reannexa- 
TioN " OF Texas 

75. British interference in Texas, 1843- 1844 

Calhoun, Works (see No. 66), Vol. V, pp. 315-336 . 312 

76. An abolitionist on annexation, January 22, 1845 

J. R. GiDDlNGS, Speeches in Congress (ed. 1853), 

pp. 123-147 318 

77. Benton's attack on the " Fifty-four-Forties," May 22, 

1846 
Congressional Globe, 29th Congress, ist session, 

pp. 851-862 322 

The Mexican War 

78. Leaves from Polk's " Diary " : the Mexican War, 1846- 

1848 
James K. Polk, Diary, ed. M. Quaife, Vol. I, pp. 9, 33, 

34, 93, 164, 319, 363, 375, 382, 387, 390, 394, 397 328 



XX Contents 

CHAPTER XIII — THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 

PAGE 

The New Territory 

79. The gold seekers, 1 849 

Walter Colton, Three Years in California, pp. 242- 

290 335 

H. H. Bancroft, Califo7-nia inter Pocula ; Works, 

Vol. XXXV, pp. 73-74 339 

The Omnibus Bill 

80. Ichabod: the glory hath departed, March 7, 1850 

Webster, Works (see No. 68), Vol. X, pp. 57-98 . . 341 
John Greenleaf Whittier, " Ichabod," in Sojigs of 

Labor, etc. (ed. 1850), pp. 93-94 344 

The Four Years' Truce 

81. The secession movement of 1850 

State Docnments on Federal Relations, ed. H. V. Ames, 

pp. 254-258 346 

Correspojidence of fohn C. Calhotin, ed. J. F. Jameson, 
in Annual Report of American Historical Associa- 
tion, 1899, Vol. II, pp. 762-763, 775-776, 1210-1212 348 

H. V. Ames (see above), pp. 271-272 351 

82. The Ostend Manifesto, October 18, 1854 

House Executive Documents, 33d Congress, 2d session, 

No. 93 353 

PART VI 

THE CRISIS OF DISUNION 
CHAPTER XIV — APPROACHING THE CRISIS 

The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the For- 
mation OF THE Republican Party 

83. The origin of " squatter sovereignty," December 24, 

1847 
Niles, Register (see No. 74), Vol. LXXIII, pp. 293-294 359 



Contents xxi 

PAGE 

84. Fugitive Slaves 

Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, i84g-i8^o, 

Richmond (ed. 1850), pp. 248-250 361 

Documentary Histo7y, etc., ed. U. B. Phillips (see 

No. 70), Vol. II, p. 75 363 

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, from 181 J to 

1882, Written by Himself pp. 245-249 364 

Bleeding Kansas 

85. The " Bogus Legislature" of Kansas, 1855 

G. D. Brewerton, Wars of the Western Border, pp. 284- 

289 367 

House Reports, 34th Congress, ist session. Vol. II, 

pp. 894-897 ./ 371 

Charles Robinson, The Kansas Conflict, pp. 114-116 372 

"A House Divided against Itself" 

86. The gist of the Dred Scott Decision, March 6, 1857 

United States Reports, 19 Howard, 404-405, 408, 449, 

451, 452, 454 373 



CHAPTER XV — SECESSION 

The Election of Abraham Lincoln 

%-]. The Republican Standard, 1 860-1 861 

J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln, 

Vol. II, pp. 221-224 378 

Messages and Papers (see No. 58), Vol. VI, pp. 5-12 . 381 

88. The Chicago convention, May 16-18, i860 

MuRAT Halstead, A History of the iVational Political 

Conventions of i860, ^"p. i2\-l^Ji^ 384 

89. A Southerner's plea for union, November 14, i860 

Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of 
the Late War between the States, Vol. II, pp. 280- 
300 388 



xxii Co ft tents 

PAGE 

The Southern Confederacy 

90. " The crime of the North," January, 1861 

T\iQ Atlantic Mojit/ily,\o\.Y\\,ipY).ii?,-i2i .... 391 

91. Secession: its justification and its accomplishment, 

December, i860 

The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. 
Stephens, and Hoivell Cobb, ed. U. B. Phillips in 
Annual Report of the American Historical Asso- 
ciation, 1911, Vol. II, pp. 511-518 394 

War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union 

and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. I, p. 112 398 

Frank Moore, Rebellion Records, Vol. I, Documents, 

pp. 19-20 . 399 

The Fall of Fort Sumter 

92. The bombardment of Fort Sumter, April 12-14, ^861 

Abner Doubleday, Reminiscences of Fo7-ts Sjunter 

and Afo2ilt7'ie, ^T^. id^i-iy^ 40^ 



CHAPTER XVI— THE CIVIL WAR 

The Opposing Forces 

93. War measures from April to August, 1861 

(a) United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XII, p. 1258 . 408 

{b) Ibid. pp. 1 258-1 259 409 

{c) Ibid. pp. 259-261 4' I 

{d) House fournal, 37th Congress, 1st session, No. 123 412 

{e) United States Statutes at Large,^o\.YA\,^.^\<^ . 412 

From Bull Run to Gettysburg 

94. The British view of the Trent affair, November- 

December, 1 861 

Lord Newton, Lord Lyons, a Record of British 7?;)^^- 

;«<zr)/, Vol. I, pp. 55-57, 61-62 414 

Massachusetts Historical Society'' s J^roceeditigs, 1911- 

1912, Vol. XLV, pp. 148-157 417 



Contents xxiii 



PAGE 

95. Pen pictures of the war 

Sarah M. Dawson, A Confederate GirVs Diaiy, 

pp. 16-46, 308 421 

Helen D. Longstreet, Lee and Longstreet at High- 
tide, pp. 50-52 425 

J. S. Wise, The End of an Era, pp. 346-356 .... 427 

The Triumph of the North 

96. The change in the fortunes of the Confederacy, 

April-December, 1863 

Alessages and Papers of the Confederacy, ed. J. D. 

Richardson, Vol. I., pp. 331-335, 345, 381-382 . 43° 

97. A Confederate embassy, February 3, 1865 

Stephens, IVarbetzvcen the States (see No. 89), Vol. II, 

pp. 599-618 435 

98. The surrender at Appomattox, April 9, 1 865 

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant,Vo\. II, pp. 489-498; 

appendix, pp. 625, 626 440 

99. Poetical tributes to Abraham Lincoln 

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (ed. 1907), pp. 262- 

263 445 

London Punch, Vol. XLVIII, p. 182 446 

James Russell Lowell, Works (Riverside ed.), 

Vol. X, pp. 22-24 448 

Edwin Markham, Lincoln and Other Poetns, pp. 1-3 449 



CHAPTER XVII — THE ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION 

How THE North used its Victory 

100. A Southerner's advice to President Johnson on recon- 
struction, June 14, 1865 

Johnson Manuscripts, in Library of Congress, Wash- 
ington, D.C 451 

loi. The Reconstruction Act, March 2, 1867 

United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV, pp. 428-429 455 



xxiv Conte7its 

PAGE 

1 02. Ku-Klux testimony, 1871 

Kti-Klux Conspiracy, Repoi't of Joint Select Com- 
mittee, Washington, 1872, Vol. VI, pp. 304-316; 
Vol. VII, pp. 668-670 459 

The Recovery of the Nation 

103. The liberal Republican movement of 1872 

Appleton, Animal Ainerican Cyclopedia, Vol. XII, 

P- 552 466 

Carl Schurz, Speeches, Correspojidence, Political 
Papers, ed. Frederick Bancroft, Vol. II, pp. 354- 
361 468 

104. The " indirect damage humbug " 

Works of Charles Sumner (ed. 1880), Vol. XIII, 

pp. 59-86 471 

Messages and Papers (see No. 58), Vol. VII, p. 102 . 475 
W. M. Stewart, Remijiiscences, pp. 177-179 . . . 476 



PART VII 

THE POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF 
THE REPUBLIC SINCE THE CIVIL WAR 

CHAPTER XVIII — TWENTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN 
SUPREMACY 

The Republican Machine 

105. The farmer and the railroad 

Documentary Histoty, etc., ed. Commons and An- 
drews (see No. 70), Vol. X, pp. 42-45, 63-66 . 481 

106. The resumption of specie payment, 1869- 1878 

Congressio7ial Globe, 40th Congress, 3d session, 

Part I, pp. 626-630 485 

Ibid. 42d Congress, 3d session. Part I, p. 627 . . . 490 
John Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years, Vol. II, 

P- 628 493 



Contents XXV 

PAGE 

The Party Revolution of 1884 

107. Blaine's tribute to Garfield, February 27, 1882 

Memorial Address, Government Printing Office, 

Washington, 1882 494 

108. The merit system 

Senate Repoiis, 47th Congress (1882), No. 567 . . . 499 
i ^n/ied States Statutes at Large, Vol. XXII, pp. 403-407 502 

109. The Democratic platform and candidate, 1884 

Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency, 

Vol. I, pp. 434-440 505 

The Nation, July 17, 1884, Vol. XXXIX, p. 46 . . . 507 

CHAPTER XIX — THE CLEVELAND DEMOCRACY 

A People's President 

1 10. The tariff message of 1887 

Messages and Papers (see No. 58), Vol. VIII, pp. 580- 

591 511 

New York Daily Tribune, December 8, 1887, p. i, 

col. 5 515 

A Billion-Dollar Country 

111. The new South 

Henry W. Grady, His Life, Writings, and Speeches, 

ed. J. C. Harris, appendix, pp. 105-112 .... 518 

112. The hurricane at Samoa, March 15-16, 1889 

Robert Louis Stevenson, y;/ Footnote to History, in 
Works (Scribner's edition, 1896), Vol. XIX, 

PP- 541-554 522 

New York Stinday Times, March 31, 1889, editorial 

page 525 

Problems of Cleveland's Second Term 

113. The Chicago strike of 1894 

Chicago Daily Herald, June 26, 1894 526 

Grover Cleveland, Presidential Problems, pp. 109- 

•113 529 



XX vi Contents 

PAGE 

114. Twisting the British Uon's tail: the Venezuela affair, 

1895 

Accounts and Papers, State Papers, Vol. XLIX, 
Correspondence relating to the Question of 
the Boundary of British Guiana, London, 1896, 

PP- 13-24 533 

Grover Cleveland (see No. 113), pp. 269-273 . . 538 
Satiii'day Reviezu, London, December 21, 1895, ^ol. 

LXXX, p. 821 540 

National Review, London, January, 1896, Vol. XXVI, 

PP- 573-574 541 

115. Bryan's Cross of Gold speech, July 9, 1896 

W. J. Bryan, The Fi?-st Battle, pp. 199-206 .... 542 



CHAPTER XX — ENTERING THE TWENTIETH 
CENTURY 

The Spanish War and the Philippines 

1 1 6. The case against imperialism 

The Nation, Vol. LXXIII, p. 4 546 

Honse Documents, 55th Congress, 3d session, Vol, I, 

No. I, Foreign Relations, pp. 934-935 .... 549 
MOORFIELD Storey, What shall we do 7vith our De- 
pendencies ? pp. I, 2, 5, 6, 9-11, 5i-54> 60 . . 551 

The Roosevelt Policies 

117. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, November 18, 1903 

Senate Docnments, 6ist Congress, 2d session. No. 
357, Treaties, Conventions, etc.. Vol. II, pp. 
1349-1357 556 

I 18. Roosevelt's speech to the governors, May 13, 1908 

Proceedins;s of a Conference of Goi'ernors, May 13-15, 

1908, Government Printing Office, Washington, 

1909, pp. viii-ix, 3-12 ' 560 



Co?i tents xxvii 



Present-Day Problems 



119. The trusts : causes and remedies 

House Docujnents, 57th Congress, ist session, No. 182, 
Report of the Industrial Commission on Trusts, 
etc.. Vol. XIII, pp. V, vii, xvii, xxx, xxxiii-xxxv . 566 

1 20. The evils of child labor 

Congressional Record, 59th Congress, 2d session, 

Part II, pp. 1554-1555, 1819-1821 571 

121. The platform of the Progressive party, Chicago, 

August 5, 191 2 

Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency^ 

Vol. II, appendix, pp. 281-291 576 



INDEX 583 



READINGS IN AMERICAN 
HISTORY 

PART I. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 
THE ENGLISH 



PART I. THE ESTABLISHMENT 
OF THE ENGLISH 

CHAPTER I 

THE NEW WORLD 

The Discovery of America 

Although Ptolemy's '' Geography," which was regarded i. Geography 
as the highest authority, perpetuated through the Middle coiumbus 
Ages the tradition that the western boundary of the world |4j 
was the " River Ocean," into whose forbidden w^aters dar- 
ing sailors sometimes ventured through the Pillars of Her- 
cules (the Strait of Gibraltar), nevertheless hints occur in 
ancient as well as in mediaeval writers that these waters 
were the same as those which washed the eastern coast 
of Asia, and that new lands might be found to the west of 
the Pillars of Hercules. Strabo, a Greek geographer of 
the first century a.d., says : 

The temperate zone makes a continuous circle by uniting with 
itself, so that, if the great size of the western sea did not prevent, 
we might sail from Spain to India on the same parallel [of lati- 
. tude] . . . and it is possible that within the same temperate zone 
there may be two or even three inhabited lands, and particularly 
in the neighborhood of the parallel drawn through Athens. 

Shortly after Strabo, the Roman philosopher and poet 
Seneca (3 B.C.-63 a.d.) wrote the following prophetic lines 
in his play '' Medea ": 

In late years the time will come when Ocean will loose the 
bands of nature, and the earth will stretch out huge, and the 

3 



4 TJie Establishment of the English 

sea will disclose new worlds, nor will Thule [the northern British 
islands] be the last [remotest] of lands. 

Only a few years before Columbus sailed, a Florentine 

poet, named Pulci, wrote the following striking prophecy 

of a western voyasre : i • i i 

•' ^ ... his bark 

The daring mariner shall urge far o'er 

The western wave, a smooth and level plain. 

And Hercules might blush to learn how far 
Beyond the limits -^ he had vainly set 
The dullest sea-craft soon shall wing her way. 
We shall descry another hemisphere. 

At our antipodes are cities, states. 

And thronged empires ne'er divined of yore. 

The following extract shows how ecclesiastical authority 
discouraged scientific speculation and experimentation in 
the Middle Ages. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan and 
one of the four great fathers of the Latin Church, warns 
his generation of the futility of scientific inquisitiveness 
in these words (389 a.d.) : 

To discuss the nature and position of the earth does not help 
us in our hope of the life to come. It is enough to know what 
Scripture states, that " He hung up the earth on nothing " 
(Job xxvi, 7). Why then argue whether He hung it up in air 
or upon the water, and raise a controversy as to how thin air 
could sustain the earth ; or why, if upon water the earth does 
not go plunging down to the bottom. . . . The earth endures 
stable upon the unstable and void because the majesty of God 
sustains it by the law of His will. 

At no time during the Middle Ages did educated men 
lose the tradition, derived from the ancient Greeks, that 

1 The Pillars of Hercules, or Strait of Gibraltar. 



The New World 5 

the earth was a sphere. " The Venerable Bede " of North- 
umbria, the first of the EngHsh historians, declared in his 
work ''On the Nature of Things," in the eighth century, 
that ''the earth ... is not perfectly round, owing to the 
inequalities of mountains and plains," but that, " if all its 
lines be considered, it has the perfect form of a sphere " 
(ch. xlvi). In an Anglo-Saxon treatise of the tenth cen- 
tury, based on Bede, we read : 

On the second day God made the heaven, which is called the 
firmament, which is visible and corporeal ; and yet we may never 
see it on account of its great elevation and the thickness of the 
clouds, and on account of the weakness of our eyes. The heaven 
encloses in its bosom all the world, and it ever turns about us, 
swifter than any mill-wheel, all as deep under this earth as it 
is above. It is all round and entire and studded with stars. 

Truly the sun goes by God's command between heaven and 
earth, by day above and by night under the earth. . . . The sun 
is very great : as broad she is, from what books say, as the 
whole compass of the earth ; but she appears to us very small, 
because she is far from our sight. . . . The moon and all the 
stars receive light from the great sun. ... 

Another Englishman, Alexander of Neckam, writing at 
the close of the twelfth century, gives us the following 
description of the compass : 

The sailors, as they sail over the sea, when in cloudy weather 
they can no longer profit by the light of the sun, or when the 
world is wrapped in the darkness of night, and they are igno- 
rant whither the ship's course is directed, touch a needle to the 
magnet ; the needle will then whirl around in a circle until, when 
its motion ceases, its point is directed to the north. 



The voyages of Columbus roused tremendous enthusi- 2. The "Ca- 
asm among his contemporaries. Mr. Henri Harrisse has Apriri7°%92 
collected five hundred and seventy titles of histories, [5] 



6 TJie Establishment of the English 

poems, plays, prophecies, letters, and narratives written by 
the men of Columbus' day, dealing with the great nav- 
igator's achievement. Another scholar, Justin Winsor, 
notes over sixty existing authentic writings of Columbus 
himself. The ''Capitulation," or terms of agreement 
between Columbus and the Spanish sovereigns, signed at 
Granada, April 17, 1492, were as follows : 

The things supplicated which your Highnesses give and de- 
clare to Christopher Columbus in some satisfaction for what he 
is to discover in the oceans, and for the voyage which now, 
with the aid of God, he is about to make therein in the service 
of your Highnesses, are as follows : — 

First, that your Highnesses as Lords that are of the said 
oceans make from this time the said Don Christopher Columbus 
your Admiral in all those islands and mainlands which by his 
hand and industry shall be discovered or acquired in the said 
oceans during his life, and after his death his heirs and succes- 
sors, from one to another perpetually. . . . 

Likewise, that your Highnesses make the said Don Christo- 
pher your Viceroy and Governor General in all the said islands 
and mainlands, . . . and that for the government of each one 
and of any one of them, he may make selection of three per- 
sons for each office, and that your Highnesses may choose and 
select the one who may be most serviceable to you. . . . 

Item, that all and whatever merchandise, whether it be pearls, 
precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other things whatso- 
ever . . . which may be bought, bartered, discovered, acquired, 
or obtained within the limits of the said Admiralty, your High- 
nesses grant henceforth to said Don Christopher, and will that 
he may have and take for himself the tenth part of all of them 
. . . the other nine parts remaining for your Highnesses. . . . 

Item, that in all the vessels which may be equipped for the 
said traffic . . . the said Admiral may if he wishes contribute 
and pay the eighth part of all that may be expended in the 
equipment ; and also that he may have and take of the profit the 
eighth part of all which may result from such equipment. . . . 



The N'eiv World 7 

These are executed and despatched with the responses of 
your Highnesses at the end of each article in the town of 
Santa Fe de la Vega de Granada, on the 17 th day of April, in 
the year of the nativity of our Savior Jesus Christ 1492. I, the 
King. I, the Queen. By order of the King and of the Queen. 

John de Coloma. Registered, Cal^ena. 

The first oflficial account of the immortal voyage of 3. Columbus' 
1492 is contained in a letter written by Columbus on d^Jsantan'*eT 
February 15, 1493, when he was off one of the Azores February 15, 
in his tiny caravel, the Nina, on his way back to Spain. 
The letter was addressed to Luis de Santangel, one of 
King Ferdinand's courtiers. 

Sir : As I know that you will have pleasure from the great 
victory which our Lord hath given me in my voyage, I write 
you this by which you shall know that in thirty-three days I 
passed over to the Indies with the fleet which the most illustri- 
ous King and Queen, our Lords, gave me ; where I found very 
many islands peopled with inhabitants beyond number. And of 
them all I have taken possession for their Highnesses, with 
proclamation and the royal standard displayed ; and I was not 
gainsaid. To the first which I found I gave the name Sant 
Salvador, in commemoration of His High Majesty who hath 
marvelously given all this : the Indians call it Guanaham. The 
second I named the Island of Santa Maria de Concepcion, the 
third Ferrandina, the fourth Isabella, the fifth La Isla Juana.^ . . . 
When I reached Juana, I followed its coast westwardly and 
found it so large that I thought it might be mainland, the 
province of Cathay. And as I did not thus find any towns or 
villages on the sea-coast, save small hamlets with the people of 
which I could not get speech, because they all fled away forth- 
with, I went on further in the same direction, thinking I should 
not miss of great cities or towns. ... I sent two men into the 
country to learn if there were a king or any great cities. They 

1 Cuba. 



8 The Establishment of the English 

travelled for three days and found innumerable small villages 
and a numberless population but nought of ruling authority. . . . 
I followed the coast eastwardly for a hundred and seven leagues 
as far as where it terminated; from which headland I saw 
another island to the east ... to which I at once gave the name 
La Spanola.^ . . . The lands are all most beautiful . . . and full 
of trees of a thousand kinds, so lofty that they seem to reach 
the sky. And I am assured that they never lose their foliage ; 
as may be imagined, since I saw them as green and as beautiful 
as they are in Spain during May. . . . And the nightingale was 
singing, and other birds of a thousand sorts, in the month of 
November. ... In the earth are many mines of metals ; and 
there is a population of incalculable number. . . . The people 
have no other weapons than the stems of reeds in their seeding 
state, on the end of which they fix little sharpened stakes. Even 
these they dare not use; for many times has it happened 
that I sent two or three men ashore to some village to parley, 
and countless numbers of them sallied forth, but as soon as 
they saw those approach they fled away in such wise that even 
a father would not wait for his son. And this was not because 
any hurt had ever been done to any of them : — on the con- 
trary, at every headland where I have . . . been able to hold 
speech with them, I gave them everything that I had, as well 
cloth as many other things, without accepting aught therefore ; 
— but such they are, incurably timid. . . . They are straight- 
ways content with whatsoever trifle of whatsoever kind be given 
them in return for it [their gold and cotton]. And I forbade 
that anything so worthless as fragments of broken platters and 
pieces of broken glass and strap buckles should be given them. 
. . . They believed very firmly that I, with these ships and 
crews, came from the sky. . . . Wherever I arrived they went 
running from house to house and to the neighboring villages, with 
loud cries of " Come ! come to see the people from Heaven ! " 
. . . This is a land to be desired, — and once seen, never to be 
relinquished, — in which, in a place most suitable and best for 
its proximity to the gold mines and for traffic with the mainland 

^ Hispaniola or Ilayti. 



The New World 9 

both on this side [Europe] and with that yonder belonging to 
the Great Can [China], I took possession of a large town, which 
I named the city of Navidad. And I have made fortification 
there . . . and I have left therein men enough, with arms and 
artillery and provisions for more than a year . . . and a great 
friendship with the king of that land, to such a degree that 
he prided himself on calling and holding me as his brother. . . . 
In another island, which they assure me is larger than Espanola, 
the people have no hair. In this there is incalculable gold ; and 
concerning this and the rest I bring Indians with me as wit- 
nesses. . . . And I believe that I have discovered rhubarb and 
cinnamon, and I shall find that the men whom I am leaving 
there will have discovered a thousand other things of value. . . . 
And in truth I should have done much more if the ships had 
served me as well as might reasonably have been expected. . . . 
Since thus our Redeemer has given to our most illustrious King 
and Queen, and to their famous kingdoms, this victory in so 
high a matter, Christendom should have rejoicing therein, and 
make great festivals and give solemn thanks to the Holy Trinity 
for the great exaltation' they shall have by the conversion of 
so many peoples to our holy faith ; and next for the tempo- 
ral benefit which will bring hither refreshment and profit, not 
only to Spain but to all Christians. This briefly, in accord- 
ance with the facts. Dated on the caravel off the Canary 
Islands, the 15 February of the year 1493 

At your command 

The Admiral 

The last years of Columbus' life were clouded with dis- 4. Columbus 
appointment, poverty, and sickness. He was greedy of both h°rso^°^ 
fame and gold. He had written to his sovereigns on the i>iego, De- 

° . cemberi,i504 

return from his fourth and last voyage to the Indies (i 503) 



praising gold like a miser. Now, a year later, he writes to 
his son Diego, who is at the court. His revenues of '' tenths 
and eighths " have not been given him (No. 2, p. 6) ; the 
trade of the Indies has been seized by covetous rivals. He 
hopes in the justice of " the Queen our Lady " to remedy 



[9] 



lO TJie Establishnent of the English 

his wrongs. But four days before his letter was penned 
Queen Isabella had died (November 26, 1 504). Two years 
later (May 20, 1 506) the great admiral died in poverty and 
obscurity at Valladolid. The letter to Diego follows : 

Very dear Son : 

Since I received your letter of Nov. 1 5 I have heard nothing 
from you. I wish that you would write me more frequently. . . . 
Many couriers come daily and the news is of such a nature that 
in hearing it all my hair stands on end, it is so contrary to what 
my soul desires. May it please the Holy Trinity to give health 
to the Queen our Lady that she may settle what has been placed 
under discussion. ... It appears to me that a good copy should 
be made of the chapter of that letter which their Highnesses 
wrote me, where they say they will fulfil their promises to me 
and will place you in possession of everything ; and that this 
copy should be given to them with another writing telling of 
my sickness and that it is now impossible for me to go and 
kiss their Royal feet and hands, and that the Indies are being 
lost and are on fire in a thousand places, and that I have re- 
ceived nothing and am receiving nothing from the revenues 
derived from them . . . and that I am living upon borrowed 
funds. . . . We must strive to obtain the government of the 
Indies and then the adjustment of the revenues. . . . Today is 
Monday. I will endeavor to have your uncle and brother start 
[for the court, to " kiss the hands " of the sovereigns] tomorrow. 
Remember to write me very often. . . . May our Lord have 
you in His holy keeping 

Done at Seville, December i 

Your father who loves you as himself 

S 
S A S 
X M Y 
Xpo Ferens^ 

1 An enigmatical anagram with which Columbus usually signed his 
letters. For conjectures as to its meaning see Thacher, Christopher 
Columbus, Vol. Ill, pp. 454-458. 



1522 

[14] 



The New World 1 1 

A Century of Exploration 
Anthoyne Pigapheta, a knight of Rhodes, finding him- 5. Magei- 
self in Spain " in the year of the Nativity of our Lord i^rounlTh?^ 
1 5 19," out of sheer curiosity (" to experiment and go and world, 1519- 
see with mine own eyes a part of the awful things of 
ocean ") joined the expedition of Magellan that was destined 
to make the first voyage around the world. On his return 
to Lisbon in 1522, Pigapheta sent to his Lord Philip, Grand 
Master of Rhodes, a long letter recounting his ample ex- 
perience of '' the awful things of ocean." 

Monday, the day of St. Laurence, the loth of August [15 19] 
. . . the fleet, provided with what was necessary for it, and carry- 
ing crews of different nations to the number of 237 men in all 
the five ships, was ready to set sail from the mole of Seville, 
and firing all the artillery, we made sail only on the foremast, 
and came to the end of a river named Betis, which is now called 
Guadalcavir. . . . After that we had passed the equinoctial line 
toward the south, we navigated between south and west ; and 
we crossed [the Atlantic] as far as a country named Verzin 
[Brazil]. ... At this place we had refreshments of victuals like 
fowls and meat of cows, also a variety of fruits of singular 
goodness. . . . The people of the said place gave, in order to 
have a knife or a fish-hook, five or six fowls, and for a comb 
they gave two geese, and for a small mirror or a pair of scissors 
they gave so much fish that ten men could have eaten of it. . . . 
For a king of cards, of the kind which they used to play with 
in Italy, they gave five fowls and thought they had cheated me. 
. . . They have boats which are made of a tree, all in one piece, 
which they call canoo. These are not made with iron instru- 
ments, for they have not got any, but with stones like pebbles ; 
and with these they plane and dig out these boats. Into these 
thirty or forty men enter, and their oars are made like iron 
shovels ; and those who row these oars are black people, quite 
naked and shaven, and look like enemies of hell. . . . Depart- 
ing thence as far as 49^ degrees in the Antarctic heavens we 



12 The Establishmeiit of the English 

entered a port to pass the winter, and remained there two whole 
months without ever seeing anybody. However one day we 
saw a giant on the shore dancing and leaping and singing, and 
whilst singing he put the sand and dust on his head . . . and he 
raised one finger on high, thinking that we came from heaven. 
He was so tall that the tallest of us came only to his waist. 
He had a large face painted red all around, and his eyes were 
painted yellow all around them, and he had two hearts painted 
on his cheeks ; he had but little hair on his head, and it was 
painted white. . . . The captain caused food and drink to be 
given to this giant, and they showed him some things, among 
them a steel mirror. And when the giant saw his likeness in 
it, he was greatly terrified, leaping backwards so that he made 
three or four of our men fall down. . . . And when he danced 
he caused the earth to sink a palm's depth at the place where 
his feet touched. He was a long time with us, and at the end 
we baptised him and gave him the name of John. This giant 
pronounced the name of Jesus, the Pater Noster [Lord's prayer], 
and the Ave Maria [Hail, Mary !] as clearly as we did : but he 
had a terribly strong and loud voice. . . . 

After taking the course to the 5 2d degree of the said Ant- 
arctic sky ... we found by miracle a strait which we called the 
Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins ; this strait is 1 1 o leagues 
long . . . and it issues in another sea which is called the peaceful 
sea [Pacific]. It is surrounded by very high mountains covered 
with snow, and it was not possible to anchor with the anchors, 
because no bottom was found. . . . Wednesday, the 28th of 
November 1520, we came forth out of the said strait, and 
entered into the Pacific sea, where we remained three months 
and twenty days without taking in provisions, and we ate only 
old biscuits reduced to powder and full of grubs . . . and we 
drank water that was yellow and stinking. We also ate the ox- 
hides which were under the main yard, so that the yard should 
not break the rigging : they were very hard on account of the 
sun, rain, and wind, and we left them for four or five days in 
the sea, and then we put them a little on the embers, and so 
ate them ; also the sawdust of wood, and rats which cost half a 
crown each : moreover enough of them were not to be got. . . , 



The New World 13 

Besides those that died, twenty five or thirty fell ill of divers 
sicknesses both in the arms and legs and other places, in such 
manner that very few remained healthy. However, thanks be 
to the Lord, I had no sickness. . . , And if our Lord and His 
Mother had not aided us ... we should all have died of hunger 
in this vast sea, and I think that man will never again undertake 
to perform such a voyage. . . . 

Saturday, the i6th of March 152 1, we arrived at daybreak 
in sight of a high island . . . named Zamal.^ The next day the 
captain-general ... set up two tents on shore for the sick, and 
had a sow killed for them. . . . The people became very friendly 
and familiar with us, and the captain seeing that they were of 
this good condition . . . conducted them to the ship and showed 
them all his goods, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, ginger, 
mace, gold, and all that was in the ship. He also had some 
shots fired with his artillery, at which they were so much afraid 
that they wished to jump from the ship into the sea. . . . These 
people are tawny, fat, and painted, and they anoint themselves 
with the oil of coconuts and sesame to preserve them from the 
sun and wind. Their hair is very black and long, reaching to 
the waist, and they carry small daggers and knives ornamented 
with gold, and their boats are like ours. . . . They only half 
cook their victuals, and salt them very much, which makes them 
drink a great deal : and they drink much with reeds, sucking 
the wine from vessels. Their repasts always last from five to 
six hours. . . . 

After recounting the death of Magellan ('' our mirror, 
light, comfort, and true guide ") in a battle against the 
natives of the island of Matan, Pigapheta gives a long de- 
scription of the journey through the East Indies, bringing 
up at the island of Timor, where the crew was regaled with 
fabulous stories of Java, Siam, and China beyond. 

Tuesday night on the nth of February 1522, we left the 
Island of Timor and entered upon the great sea named Laut 

1 Samar, in the Philippines. 



14 TJic Establishment of the EnglisJi 

Chidol.^ ... In order to double the Cape of Good Hope we 
went as far as 42° South latitude. . . . Some of our men, and 
among them the sick, would have liked to land at a place be- 
longing to the Portuguese called Mozambique, both because the 
ship made much water and because of the great cold which we 
suffered. . . . But the greater number of us, prizing honor more 
than life itself, decided on attempting at any risk to return to 
Spain. . . . We then sailed to the north-west for two whole 
months without ever taking rest ; and in this short time we lost 
twenty one men between Christians and Indians. We made then 
a curious observation on throwing them into the sea, that the 
Christians remained with the face turned to the sky, and the 
Indians with the face turned to the sea. And if God had not 
granted us favorable weather, we should have all perished of 
hunger. . . . We touched at the Cape Verde Islands . . . and the 
inhabitants told us that it was Thursday, which was a great cause 
of wondering to us, since with us it was only Wednesday. . . . 
But we were afterwards advised that there was no error on our 
part, since as we had always sailed towards the west, following 
the course of the sun, and had returned to the same place, we 
must have gained twenty-four hours, as is clear to anyone who 
reflects upon it. . . . 

At last when it pleased Heaven, on Saturday the 6th of Sep- 
tember 1522, we entered the bay of San Lucar; and of sixty 
men who composed our crew when we left Maluco, we were 
reduced to only eighteen, and these for the most part sick. Of 
the others, some died of hunger, some had run away at Timor, 
and some had been condemned to death for their crimes. From 
the day when we left this bay of San Lucar until our return 
thither, we reckoned that we had run more than 14,460 leagues 
and we had completed going round the earth from east to west. 

Monday the 8th of September we cast anchor near the mole 
of Seville, and discharged all the artillery. 

Tuesday we all went in shirts and barefoot, with a taper in 
our hands, to visit the shrine of Santa Maria of Victory. . . . 
The Chevalier Anthoyne Pigapheta 

1 The "Javanese," or Southern (Indian), Ocean. 



The New World 1 5 

In 1609, as an encouragement to "the right worshipp- 6. De Soto's 
full counsellors and other cheerefull adventurers " who had i?"^?5?' *° 

the Missis- 

jiist founded at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent sippi, 1538- 

English settlement in America, Richard Hakluyt, a most 

enthusiastic promoter of colonial enterprise, translated from 

the Portuguese an account of De Soto's " four yeares con- 

tinuall travell and discoverie for above one thousand miles 

east and west." The narrative was written by a gentleman 

of the Portuguese town of Elvas, who accompanied De Soto. 

It contains the earliest information we have of the interior 

of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Arkansas, and the 

Gulf States. After describing De Soto's voyage to the 

West Indies, the narrative continues : 

On Sunday the 18 of May, in the yeere of our Lord 1539 
the Adelantado, or president, departed from Havana in Cuba 
with his fleete, which were nine vessels. . . . They sailed seven 
dales with a prosperous wind. The 25 day of May, the day de 
Pascade Spirito Santo (which we call Whitson Sonday), they saw 
the land of Florida. . . . They came to the town of Vcita, wfiere 
the Governour was, on Sunday the first of June, being Trinitie 
Sunday. . . . The Countrie round about was very fennie, and 
encumbered with great and hie trees. The Governor commanded 
to fel the woods a crossebow shot round about the towne, that 
the horses might runne, and the Christians might have the 
advantage of the Indians if by chance they should set upon 
them by night. . . . 

After two years wandering in search of gold, with many 
a dangerous encounter with the Indians, De Soto's company 
reached the banks of the Mississippi. 

And because the streame was swift, they went a quarter of 
a league up the River along the bancke, and crossing over, fell 
down with the streame, and landed right over against the Camp. 
... As soon as those that passed first were on land on the 



1 6 The EstablisJimcnt of the E?iglish 

other side, the barges returned to the place where the Governor 
was: and within two hours after Sunne-rising all the people 
were over.^ The River was almost half a league broad. If a 
man stood still on the other side, it could not be discerned 
whether he were a man or no. The River was of great depth 
and of strong current : the water was always muddie : there 
came downe the River continually many trees and timber, which 
the force of the water and streame brought downe. There was 
a great store of fish in it of sundrie sorts, and the most of it 
differing from the fresh water fish of Spaine. . . . 

For still another year De Soto pursued his fruitless quest 
for gold beyond the Mississippi, and returned to the v^estern 
bank of the great river to die. 

The Governor felt in himselfe that the houre approached, 
wherein hee was to leave this present life, and called for the 
King's Officers, Captaines, and principall persons . . . and re- 
quested them to elect a principall person, able to governe, of 
whom all should like well, and when he was elected they should 
sweare before him to obey him. . . . And Baltasar de Galleyos 
answered in the name of all the rest : And first of all comforting 
him, he set before his eyes how short the life of this world was, 
and how with many troubles and miseries it is accompanied, and 
how God showed him a singular favor which soonest left it. 
And touching the Governor which he commanded that they 
should elect, he besought him that it would please his Lordship 
to name him which he thought fit, and him they would obey. 
And presently he named Luis de Moscoso de Alvarado his 
Captaine generall. . . . The next day, being the 21st of May, 
1542, departed out of this life the valiant, virtuous, and valorous 
Captaine, Don Fernando de Soto, Governor of Cuba, and Adelan- 
tado of Florida : whom fortune advanced, as it useth to do others, 
that hee might have the higher fal. . . . Luis de Moscoso deter- 
mined to conceale his death from the Indians, because Ferdnando 

1 The site of the crossing was probably Council Bend or Walnut Bend, 
in Trinca County, Mississippi, some twenty-five to thirty-five miles south 
of Memphis. 



The New World \j 

de Soto had made them believe that the Christians were immor- 
tall ; also because they tooke him to be hardie, wise, and valiant : 
and if they should know that he was dead they would be bold 
to set upon the Christians, though they lived peaceablie by them. 
... As soone as he was dead, Luis de Moscoso commanded to 
put him secretly in an house, where hee remained three dales : 
and removing him from thence, commanded him to bee buried 
in the night at one of the gates of the towne, within the wall. 
And as the Indians had scene him sick and missed him, so they 
did suspect what might bee. And passing by the place where 
hee was buried, seeing the earth mooved, they looked and spake 
one to another. Luis de Moscoso understanding of it, commanded 
him to be taken up by night, and to cast a great deale of sand 
into the mantles wherein he was winded up, wherein hee was 
carried in a canoe and throwne into the middest of the River. 
The Cacique (Chief) of Guachoya inquired for him, demanding 
what was become of his brother and Lord, the Governor ; Luis 
de Moscoso told him that hee was gon to heaven, as many other 
times hee did : and because hee was to stay there certaine dales, 
hee had left him in his place. . . . Luis de Moscoso commanded 
all the goods of the Governor to be sold at an outcrie (auction) : 
to wit, two men slaves, & two women slaves, and three horses, 
and 700 hogges. . . . 

Under Luis de Moscoso the men built "seven brigan- 
dines " in which they sailed down the Mississippi, and, 
after fifty-two days of perilous voyaging on the Gulf, 
three hundred and eleven out of the original company 
of six hundred arrived at the Mexican town of Panuco, 
September 14, 1543. 

All of them were apparrelled in Deeres skins tanned and died 
black, to wit cotes, hose, and shooes. When they came to Panuco 
they presently went to the Church to pray, and give God thanks 
that so miraculously had saved them. The townsmen . . . carried 
some of them to their houses and entertained them . . . because 
they were their Countrimen. . . . And all of them were provided 
for by their hostes of many hennes and bread of maiz and fruits 



[21] 



1 8 TJic Establishment of the EnglisJi 

of the Countrie . . . God reward them all. And God grant that 
those which it pleased him to deliver out of Florida, and to bring 
againe into Christendome, may serve him ; and unto those that 
died in that countrey . . . God for his mercie sake grant the 
kingdome of heaven. Amen 

7. A tribute The following turgid and clumsy laudation of Queen 
Elizabeth as Elizabeth was prefixed to a chapter of an ambitious work 
the "Mother " contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and 
Sea-great- Lande Travells," published in 1625 by Samuel Purchas, 
^^^5 son of a yeoman of Essex. Purchas was a younger. asso- 
ciate of the great chronicler Richard Hakluyt, and called 
himself " Hakluytus Posthumus." 

Haile greatest of English Names, glorious Elizabeth ! Nor 
may wee after thy voyage and peregrination out of this World, 
unto thy true and heavenly home & Country, forget the great 
acts of thy earthly Pilgrimage. Thou wast indeed the Mother 
of English sea-greatnesse, and didst first by thy Generalls not 
salute alone, but awe and terrify the remotest East and West, 
stretching thy long and strong armes to India, to China, to 
America, to the Peruvian seas, to the Californian Coast and 
New Albians scepters : Thou mad'st the Northerne Muscovite 
admire thy Greatnesse : Thou gavest name to the North-west 
Straits (Meta Incognita) and the Southern Negros, and Islands 
of the South-unknowne-continent which knew not humanitie, 
were compelled to know thee. Thou imbracedst the whole 
Earthly Globe in thy Maritime Armes. . . . Thou wast a Mother 
to thy neighbors, Scots, French, Dutch ; a Mirror to the re- 
motest of Nations, Great Cumberlands twelve voyages before 
recited are thine, and the fiery vigor of his Martiall Spirit was 
kindled at thy bright Lamp. . . . Drake, Candish [Cavendish], 
John and Richard Hawkins, Raleigh, Dudley, Sherley, Preston, 
Greenvile, . . . Winter, Frobisher, Davies, and other the Star- 
worthies of Englands Sphere, whose Planet-courses we have 
before related, acknowledge Elizas Orb to be their first and 
highest Mover, 



The New World 19 

After conspicuous military services in Ireland and the 8. sir Hum- 

y Gil- 
s patent, 



Netherlands, Sir Humphrey Gilbert petitioned the Queen J^^^ ^^^ 



for the favor of serving her by exploration. His request 1578 
was granted, and the following patent issued, by virtue of l^i] 
which he was the first Englishman '' to carry people to 
erect an habitation and government in these Northerly 
Countreys of America." 

The Letters Patents granted by her Majestic to Sir Humfrey 
Gilbert knight, for the inhabiting and planting of our people in 
America. 

Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, Queene of England, &c. 
To all people to whom these presents shall come, greeting. 
Know ye that of our especiall grace, certaine science and meere 
motion, we have given and granted, and by these presents for 
us, our heirs and successors, doe give and grant to our tmstie 
and wellbeloved servant Sir Humfrey Gilbert of Compton in 
our countie of Devonshire knight, and to his heirs and assignes 
forever, free libertie and license from time to time, and at all 
times forever hereafter, to discover, finde, search out, and view 
such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countries and terri- 
tories not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, 
as to him, his heirs & assignes, and to every or any of them, 
shall seem good : and the same to have, hold, occupie, and en- 
joy to him, his heirs and assignes forever, with all commodities, 
jurisdictions and royaldes, both by sea and land. . . . And we 
do likewise by these presents . . . give full authoritie and power 
to the saide Sir Humfrey . . . that he shall and may at all and 
every time and times hereafter, have take and lead ... to in- 
habit there with him . . . such and so many of our subjects as 
shall willingly accompany him . . . with sufficient shipping and 
furniture for their transportations, so that none of the same 
persons nor any of them be such as hereafter shall be specially 
restrained by us, our heires and successors. And further that 
he, saide Humfrey, his heirs and assignes . . . shall have, hold 
and occupy and enjoy ... all the soyle of all such lands, coun- 
tries & territories so to be discovered or possessed as aforesaid, 



20 



TJie Establishnicjit of the English 



and of all Cities, Castles, Townes, and Villages, and places in 
the same, with the rights, royalties, and jurisdictions, as well 
marine as other ... to be had or used with ful power to dispose 
thereof, & of every part thereof in fee simple . . . according to 
the laws of England . . . paying unto us for all services, duties 
and demands, the fifth part of all the oare of gold and silver 
that . . . shall be there gotten. . . . 

And forasmuch as ... it shall be necessarie for the safety 
of all men that shall adventure themselves in those journeys or 
voyages to determine to live together in Christian peace and 
civill quietness, whereby everyone may with more pleasure and 
profit enjoy that whereunto they shall attaine with great paine 
and perill : wee . . . doe give and grant the said Humfrey and 
his heires and assignes forever . . . that they shall have full and 
meere [free] power and authoritie to correct, punish, pardon, 
governe, and rule ... as well in causes capitall or criminall, as 
civill, both marine and other, all such our subjects as shall . . . 
adventure themselves in the said journeys or voyages ... ac- 
cording to such statutes, lawes, and ordinances as shall be by 
him the said Sir Humfrey, his heires and assignes . . . devised 
or established for the better government of the said people : so 
always that the sayd statutes, lawes and ordinances may be as 
neere as conveniently may, agreeable to the forme of the lawes 
& pollicy of England ; and also that they be not against the true 
Christian faith or religion now professed in the Church of Eng- 
land, nor in any wise to withdraw any of the subjects or peoples 
of those lands or places from the allegiance of us, our heires or 
successours, as their immediate Soveraignes under God. . . . 

Witnesse ourselfe at Westminster the ii day of June, the 
twentieth yeere of our raigne. Anno Dom. 1578 

Per ipsam Reginam 



9. An en- Until the last quarter of the sixteenth century the Eng- 

to Engi^h'^ ^^sh showed practically no interest in the colonization of 
colonization, ^he new world. Richard Hakluyt wrote in the Dedicatory 
Epistle to his "Divers Voyages," published in 1582: 
'' I marvaile [marvel] not a little, that since the first 



[22] 



The New World 21 

discoverie of America, which is nowe full fourscore and 
tenne yeerss, after so great conquests and plantings of 
the Spaniards and Portingales [Portuguese] there, that 
wee of England could never have the grace to set fast 
footing in su'ch fertill and temperate places as are left as 
yet unpossessed of them." Two years later, on the fail- 
ure of Gilbert's expedition and the transfer of his patent 
(No. 8, p. 19) to Sir Walter Raleigh, Hakluyt, now chaplain 
of the English embassy at Paris, '' at the request and direc- 
tion of the right worshippfull Mr. Walter Ray lay," wrote 
his " Discourse Concerning Western Planting" (Coloniza- 
tion), from which the following extracts are taken : 

Nowe, to leave the Spaniardes and Frenche and to come to 
ourselves : seeing it hath pleased Almightie God to reveale at 
this instant unto her Majestic and the realm that once again 
afreshe which was in parte discovered by Sebastian Gabote 
[Cabot] ... to her most famous grandfather, Kinge Henry the 
Seaventh ... if nowe the Queene, her Counsell, and other sub- 
jects shall never so little delaye ... let them assure themselves 
that they will come to[o] late and a day after the faire : ffor as 
the wise man sayeth d^" Post est occasio calva} ... To con- 
clude ; if wee doe procrastinate the plantinge [colonizing] . . . 
the Frenche, the Normans, the Brytons, or the Duche or some 
other nation will not only prevente us of the mightie Baye of 
St. Lawrence, where they have gotten the starte of us already, 
thoughe wee had the same revealed to us by bookes published 
and printed in Englishe before them, but also will deprive us 
of that goodd land which nowe wee have discovered. Which if 
they doe (as God defende they shoulde), then it falleth oute that 
we shall have our enemyes or doubtfull frendes rounde about 
us . . . and also incurr great danger and inconvenience in suffer- 
inge Papistes ... to enriche themselves under our noses, to be 
better able to supplant or overrunne us. . . . 

^ " Opportunity is bald behind." 



22 The Establishme7it of tJie English 

The Discourse proceeds with a long and labored argu- 
ment that the northwest passage to China may be " easily, 
quickly and perfectly searched out" by English expeditions 
to the new world, and that Spain's claim to the mainland of 
America is invalid in spite of both Columbus' voyage and 
the Pope's Bull. For, even passing over the voyage of the 
Welshman, Mardoch ap Owen, in 1170, '" Gabote [Cabot] 
discovered this long tracte of firme lande twoo yeeres before 
Columbus ever sawe any part of the Continent thereof." 
The treatise closes with a list of reasons to induce the 
Queen to " take in hande the westerne voyadge." 

1. The soyle yeldeth, and may be made to yelde, all the 
severall comodities of Europe, and of all kingdomes, domynions, 
and territories that England tradeth^with. . . . 

2. The passage thither and home is neither to[o] longe nor 
to[o] shorte, but easie and to be made twise in the yere. . . . 

6. This enterprise may staye the Spanishe Kinge from 
flowinge over all the face of that waste firme [unoccupied main- 
land] of America, if wee seate and plante there in time. . . . 
Howe easie a matter may it bee to this realme, swarminge at 
this day with valiant youthes, rustinge and hurtfull by lack of 
employment ... to be lordes of all those sees, and to spoile 
Phillipps Indian navye [Philip IPs fleet in the West Indies], and 
to deprive him of the yerely passage of his treasure into Europe, 
and consequently to abate the pride of Spaine and of the sup- 
porter of the great Antechrist of Rome, and to pull him downe 
in equallitie with his neighbor princes. . . . 

10. No forren [foreign] comoditie that comes into England 
comes withoute payment of- custome once, twise, or thrise before 
it comes into the realme, and so all forren comodities become 
derer to the subjectes of this realme : and by this course to 
Norumbega [the northern shores of America] forren princes 
customes are avoided. . . . 

16. Wee shall by plantinge there inlarge the glory of the 
Gospell, and from England plante sincere religion, and provide 



The New World 23 

a safe and sure place to receave people from all partes of the 
world that are forced to flee for the truth of Gods worde. . . . 

17. If frontier warres there chaunce to arise ... it will occa- 
sion the trayninge upp of our youthe in the discipline of warr, 
and make a nomber fitt for the service of the warres and for the 
defence of our people there and at home. . . . 

20. Many men of excellent wittes and of divers singuler giftes, 
overthrown by suertishippe [suretyship, trusteeship], by sea, or 
by some folly of youthe, that are not able to live in England, 
may there be raised againe, and doe their contrie goodd service. . . . 

22. The frye of the wandringe beggars of England, that grewe 
upp idly, and hurtefull and burdenous to this realme, may there 
be unladen and better bredd upp. . , . 

23. If Englande crie oute and affirme, that there is so many 
in all trades that one cannot live for another . . . this Norumbega 
. . . offreth the remedie. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ENGLISH COLONIES 

The Old Dominion 

10. An Eng- John Pory, the author of the following letter, was a 
hsh gentle- Cambrid2:e Master of Arts and an ex-member of Parlia- 

man's ^ 

impressions ment. He accompanied Governor Yeardley to Jamestown 
townTn^i6i9 i^ 1619 and became secretary of the Colony. He was 
[29] Speaker of the first legislative assembly that met on 
American soil, the House of Burgesses of July 30 to 
August 4, 16 19. The proceedings of this memorable 
session, written in Pory's own hand, were discovered in 
the State Paper Ofhce of England in 1853. The follow- 
ing letter was written by Pory to his friend, the English 
Ambassador to Holland, only a few weeks after the 
adjournment of the Assembly : 

Right Honorable, and my singular good Lorde : 

. . . Here (as your lordship cannot be ignorant) I am, for faulte 
of a better, Secretary of Estate, the first that was ever chosen 
and appointed by Commission from the Counsell and Company 
in England, under their handes and common scale. By my fees 
I must maintaine my selfe ; which the Governour telles me, may 
this yeere amounte to a matter of 300 1. sterling; wherof fifty 
doe I owe to himselfe, and I pray God the remainder may 
amounte to a hundred more. As yet I have gotten nothing, save 
onely (if I may speak it without boasting) a general reputation 
of integrity. . . . 

As touching the quality of this country, three things there bee 
which in a fewe yeares may bring this Colony to perfection ; the 

24 



The English Colonies 25 

English plough, Vineyards, and Cattle. For the first, there may 
be many grounds here, cleared by the Indians, to our handes, 
which being much worne out will beare no more of their corn, 
which requireth an extraordinary deale of sappe and substance 
to nourish it ; but of our graine of all sortes it will beare great 
abundance. We have had this yeare a plentifull cropp of English 
wheat, though the last harvest 16 18 was onely shed upon the 
stubble and so self-sowne. In July last, so soone as we had 
reaped this self-sowen wheate, we sett Indian corne upon the 
same grounde, which is come up in great abundance. . . . 

Vines are here in suche abundance that, wheresover a man 
treads, they are ready to embrace his foote. . . . For cattle they 
do mightily increase here, both kine, hogges and goates, and are 
much greater in stature than the race of them first brought 
out of England. All our riches for the present doe consiste in 
tobacco, wherein one man by his owne labor hath in one yeare 
raised to himself e to the value of 200 1. sterling; and another 
by the meanes of sixe servants hath cleared at one crop a thousand 
pound English.^ 

Nowe that your lordship may knowe that we are not the veriest 
beggers in the worlde, our cowekeeper here of James citty on 
Sundays goes accowtered [dressed] all in f reshe flaming silke ; and 
a wife of one that in England had professed the black arte, not 
of a scholler but of a collier of Croyden, weares her rough bever 
hatt with a faire pearl hatband, and a silken suite thereto cor- 
respondent. But to leave the populace and come higher; the 
Governour here, who at his first coming, besides a great deale of 
worth in his person, brought onely his sword with him, was at 
his late being in London, together with his lady, out of his rneer 
gettings here, able to disburse very near 3000 1. to furnishe him- 
selfe for his voyage. And once within seven yeares, I am per- 
suaded (absit invidia verbo) ^ that the Governors place here may 
be as profittable as the lord Deputies of Irland. ... At my first 
coming hither the solitary uncouthnes of this place, compared 
with those partes of Christendome or Turky where I had been ; 
and likewise my being senquestered from all occurrents [events] 

1 $5000. equivalent perhaps to $20,000 to-day. 

2 " Envy be absent from my speech." 



26 TJie EstablisJiment of the English 

and passages which are so rife there, did not a little vexe me. And 
yet in these hve moneths of my continuance here, there have come 
at one time or another eleven saile of ships into this River : but 
fraighted more with ignorance then [than] with any other mur- 
chandize. At length being hardened to this custome of abstinence 
from curiosity, I am resolved wholly to minde my business here, 
and nexte after my penne, to have some good book alwayes in 
store, being in solitude the best and choicest company. Besides, 
among these christall rivers and odiferous woods I doe escape 
muche expense, envye, contempte, vanity, and vexation of minde. 
Yet good my lord, have a little compassion on me, and be pleased 
to sende me what pampletts and relations of the Interim since I 
was with you, as your lordship shall think good. . . . 

Your lordships ever most humbly at your commande 

Jo. Pory 

James Citty in Virginia, Sept. 30, 16 19 

11. Virginia The colonies in America naturally felt the effect of the 

te^s^^iet;™^^' stormy years of the mid-seventeenth century in England. 

1662 Two years after Oliver Cromwell had established the 

l^^l Commonwealth (or Republic) in England, the following 

proclamation was issued by I^arliament : 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CAPTAIN ROBERT DENIS, MR. 
RICHARD BENNET, MR. THOMAS STAGGE, AND CAPTAIN 
WILLIAM CLAYBOURNE, APPOINTED COMMISSIONERS 
FOR THE REDUCING OF VIRGINIA AND THE INHABIT- 
ANTS THEREOF TO THEIR DUE OBEDIENCE TO THE 
COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND 

. . . Upon your arrival at Virginia, you, or any two or more 
of you (of whom captain Robert Denis to be one) shall use your 
best endeavors to reduce all the Plantations within the Bay of 
Chesopiaik [Chesapeake] to their due obedience to the Parlia- 
ment of the Commonwealth of England. For which purpose 
you . . . have hereby power to assure Pardon and Indemnity to 
all the Inhabitants of the said Plantations, that shall submit unto 
the present Government and authority. . . . 



TJic English Colonies 2/ 

And in case they shall not submit by fair ways and means, 
you are to use all Arts of hostility, that lie in your power 
to enforce them : and if you shall find that the People so 
stand out that you can by no other ways or means reduce 
them to their due obedience, you have power to appoint cap- 
tains and other officers, and to raise forces within every one 
of the Plantations aforesaid, for the furtherance and good o*f 
the Service. . . . 

You shall cause and see the several acts of Parliament against 
kingship and the House of lords to be received and published ; 
also the Acts for abolishing the Book of common prayers . . . 
and all other Acts herewith delivered you. You . . . have full 
Power to administer an oath to the Inhabitants or planters there, 
to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it 
is now established, without a King or House of lords. . . . 

You shall cause all writs, warrents, and other processes what- 
soever to be issued forth as occasion shall require, in the name 
of the keepers of the liberty of England, by authority of the 
Parliament. . . . 

And lastly we doubt not but you will use your best diligence 
and care in carrying on of this affair. ... So the Council ^ wiJl 
take the same into consideration, that respect may be had of 
your Pains and travail therein, and of a recompence agreeable 
to your service. . . . 

Signed in the name and by the order of the Council of State 
appointed by authority of Parliament 

Jo. Bradshawe, President 
Whitehall, Sept. 26th, 1651 

From the resignation of Richard Cromwell, son of the 
great Oliver, April 22, 1659, until the restoration of 
Charles II, May 29, 1660, England was without a legal 
government. The Virginia House of Burgesses in its 
session of March 13, 1660, passed the following acts: 

1 The Council of State was a committee of about forty members of 
Parliament which performed the executive duties under the Common- 
wealth. 



28 The Establishment of the English 

Whereas by reason of the late frequent distractions, which 
God in his mercy putt a suddaine period [sudden stop] to, there 
being in England noe resident absolute and gen'll confessed 
power : Be it enacted and confirmed, That the supreame power of 
the government of this country shall be resident in the Assembly, 
and that all writts issued in the name of the Grand Assembly 
of Virginia, until such a comand and commission come out of 
England, shall be by the Assembly judged lawfull. 

Bee it enacted, That the honourable Sir William Berkeley bee 
Governour and Captain Gen'll of Virginia, and that he govern 
according to the ancient lawes of England and the established 
lawes of this country. . . . 

The restoration of Charles II in 1660 was followed by 
loyal acts of acknowledgment on the part of the colonies 
and expressions of pardon and goodwill from the amiable 
king. To Governor Berkeley, who had gone over to Eng- 
land shortly after the Restoration, the following instructions 
were issued : 

. . . You shall within one month after your arrival, or sooner, 
if you think fit call a General Assembly according to the usage 
and custom of that our Colony and at the opening thereof you 
shall declare to them that we are graciously pleased to grant a 
free and General act of pardon and oblivion to all our subjects 
of what degree and quality whatsoever . . . excepting such per- 
sons who are attainted by act of Parliament for the horrid mur- 
der of our dear Father ^ of blessed memory . . . provided that 
you and the Assembly take present care for the repeal of all 
laws and orders made during the late times of rebellion and 
usurpation against our crown and dignity. . . . 

You shall let that Assembly know that we do expect from 
you and them that you establish good and wholesome rules 
and orders ... for the punishment of all vice and debauchery 
and idleness . . . and that they likewise establish all necessary 

1 The " regicide " members of the Rump Parhament who had voted 
for Charles I's execution, 1649. 



The English Colonies 29 

encouragements for virtue, industry and obedience, and for what- 
soever may advance the wealth, honor, and reputation of that our 
Colony ... in order to which we do very heartily recommend 
to you and their care and consideration. 

1. That care be taken to dispose the Planters to be willing 
to build towns upon Every River, which must tend very much 
to their security and in time to their profit. . . . 

2. That all possible endeavours be used and encouragement 
given to advance the plantation of Silk, Flax, Hemp, Pitch and 
potatoes for which we are well assured that climate and soil is 
very proper. ... 

3. Whereas we have been moved to put some restraint on 
the planting of Tobacco in that our Colony, both for the advanc- 
ing of the other commodities we have recommended to you, and 
because the price thereof falls so low by the great quantities 
brought in from our other plantations, that the same will not in 
a short time be valuable to the planters or merchants . . . we do 
recommend the consideration and debate of the whole to you 
and our Assembly . . . and we do direct you that some Commis- 
sioners be appointed to treat with others of Maryland to that 
purpose, and a fitt place agreed upon for the same. In order 
whereunto we are well assured the Lord Baltimore will send 
Directions to those that are trusted by him. . . . 

5. . . . Whereas we have certain knowledge that very much 
Tobacco is shipped in that our Colony in Dutch vessels . . . and 
that very much which is put on English vessels is not yet brought 
into England ... we do hereby require you that a very exact 
account you do cause to be . . . transmitted to our Counsellors 
and Farmers of our Customs here of all the Tobacco which 
shall be shipped from that our Colony in English vessels. . . . 

8. You shall once every year transmit the true and full state 
of that our Colony to our Council of plantations here, with a 
particular account of eveiy improvement you observe to be 
made by the industry of the planters as well as by the direction 
of the Government. In the year past what number of people 
have been transported thither . . . and what new plantations 
they have entered upon, and what new encouragement you de- 
sire from hence ... so that we may show you by spme new 



30 



TIic EstablisJnncut of the English 



12. An eye- 
witness' 
account of 
Bacon's re- 
bellion, 1675- 
1676 

[34] 



multiplied grace and favor how much we take to heart the good 
and benefit and advancement of that our Colony and our good 
subjects thereof. 

9. Lastly . . . we do hereby recommend to your wisdom and 
integrity that Justice be well and impartially administered, and 
that our good subjects shall have no cause of complaint. . . . 

Given at our Court at White Hall this 12th day of September 
in the fourteenth year of our reign,^ 1662 

By his Majesties Command 

It would be hard to find in the whole mass of colonial 
literature a piece to surpass in interest the vivid and con- 
vincing narrative entitled '' The Beginning, Progress and 
Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia." The ac- 
count was written in 1705, at the request of Lord Oxford, 
by a Virginia planter and fellow-member of Bacon's in the 
House of Burgesses of 1676, who signs himself simply 
T. M. The manuscript was bought by the American 
minister in London, at a bookseller's sale, and sent to 
President Jefferson (December 20, 1803), who had a copy 
made for publication in the Richmond Enquirer^ Septem- 
ber I, 5, 8, 1804. 

My dwelling was in Northumberland, the lowest county on 
the Potomack river, where having also a plantation, servants, 
cattle &c., my overseer there had agreed with one Robert Hen 
to come thither and be my herdsman, who then lived ten miles 
above it ; but on a Sabbath day morning, in the summer anno 
1675, people in their way to Church saw this Hen lying thwart 
his threshold, and an Indian without the door, both chopt on 
their heads, arms, and other parts, as if done with Indian 
hatchetts, the Indian was dead, but Hen when asked who did 
that ? answered Doegs, Doegs, and soon died, then a boy came 
out from under the bed where he had hid himself, and told them 



1 Charles II, ignoring the Commonwealth and Protectorate, the years 
of his exile, dated his reign from his father's execution in 1649. 



The English Colonies 31 

Indians had come at break of day and done those murders. 
Ffrom this Englishman's bloud did (by degrees) arise Bacons 
rebellion with the following mischiefs which overspread all Vir- 
ginia and twice endangered Maryland, as by the ensuing account 
is evident. . . . 

Frequent complaints of bloodshed w^ere sent to Sir William 
Berkeley (then Govern'r) from the heads of the rivers, which 
were as often answered with promises of assistance. These at 
the head of James and York rivers . . . grew impatient at the 
many slaughters of their neighbors and rose for their own de- 
fence, who chusing Mr. Bacon for their leader sent oftentimes 
to the Govern'r humbly beseeching a commission to go against 
those Indians at their own charge, which his hono'r as often 
promised, but did not send. . . . 

During these protractions and people often slaine ... 300 
men taking Mr. Bacon for their coman'r met and concerted 
[discussed] together the danger of going without a comiss'n 
on the one part and the continuall murders of their neighbors 
on th' other part [not knowing whose or how many of their own 
turns might be next] and came to this resolution viz. : to prepare 
themselves with necessaries for a march, but interim to send 
again for a comission, which if could or could not be obteyned 
by a certaine day, they would proceed comission or no comission. 

This day lapsing and no com'n come, they march'd into the 
wilderness in quest of these Indians after whom the Govern'r sent 
his proclamacon denouncing all rebells, who should not return 
within a limited day . . . but Mr. Bacon, with 5 7 men, proceded 
untill their provisions were near spent without finding enemys. . . . 
The circumstances of this expedicon [expedition] Mr. Bacon en- 
tertained me with at his own chamber on a visit I made him. . . . 

Bacon was pardoned by Governor Berkeley after this 
fruitless expedition and given a seat in the Governor's 
Council (to keep him out of the Assembly .?), but still he 
persisted in his demand for a commission, and finally fled 
from Jamestown and again put himself at the head of a 
body of men up the river. 



32 The Establishine7it of the English 

In three or ffour daies after this escape, upon news that 
Mr. Bacon was 30 miles up the river at the head of 400 men, 
the Govern'r sent to the parts adjacent, on both sides James 
river, for the militia ... to come and defend the town . . . 
who att 2 of the clock entered the town without being with- 
stood, and formed a body upon a green not a flight shot from 
the end of the state house, of horse and ffoot as well as veteran 
troops. ... 

In less than an hour more Mr. Bacon came with a file of 
ffusileers on either hand near the corner of the state house, 
where the Govern'r and Councill went forth to meet him. We 
saw from the window ^ the Govern'r open his breast, and Bacon 
strutting betwixt his two files of men with his left arm on kenbow 
[akimbo] flinging his right arm every way . . . when in two 
minutes the Govern'r walked toward his private apartment a 
coits cast distant at the other end of the state house . . . and 
after him walked Mr. Bacon with outragious postures of his 
head arms body, and leggs, often tossing his hand from his 
sword to his hat, and after him came a detachment of ffusileers 
. . . who presented their ffusils [guns] at a window of the assembly 
•chamber filled with faces, repeating with menacing voices ^' we 
will have it, we will have itt.^ "... In this hubub a servant of 
mine got so near as to hear the Govern'rs words . . . when he 
opened his breast he said '^ here ! shoot me, foregod fair mark 
shoot," often rehearsing the same . . . whereto Mr. Bacon 
answered, '' no may it please yo'r hono'r we will not hurt a 
hair of yo'r head ... we are come for a comission to save 
our lives from th' Indians, which you have so often promised, 
and now we will have it before we go." . . . 

In an hour more after these violent concussions Mr. Bacon 
came up to our chamber and desired a comission from us. . . . 
Our speaker sat silent, while one Mr. Blayton a neighbor to 
Mr. Bacon . . . answered " twas not in our province, or power, 
nor of any other, save the king's vicegerent our govern'r," he 
pressed hard nigh half an hours harangue on the preserving 

1 The window of the state house where the Burgesses, of whom T. M. 
was a member, were assembled as anxious spectators. 

2 That is, the commission. 



The English Colonies 33 

our lives from the Indians . . . whereto having no other answer, 
he went away dissatisfied. . . . 

We had account that Generall Bacon was march'd with a 
thousand men into the fforest to seek the enemy Indians, and 
in a few daies after our next news was that the govem'r had 
sumoned together the militia ... to the number of 1200 men 
and proposed to them to follow and suppress that rebell Bacon ; 
whereupon arose a murmuring before his face, Bacon Bacon 
Bacon, and all walked out of the field, muttering as they went 
Bacon Bacon Bacon, leaving the govern'r and those that came 
with him to themselves, who being thus abandon'd wafted 
[sailed] over Chesepiacke bay 30 miles to Occomack, where 
are two countres of Virginia, . . . 

The govern'r made a 2d attempt coming over from Occo- 
mack with what men he could procure in sloops and boats 
forty miles up the river to Jamestown, which Bacon hearing of 
came again down from his forest pursuit . . . and stormed and 
took the town [Jamestown] in which attack were 12 men slaine 
and wounded, but the govern'r with most of his followers fled 
back down the river in their vessells. . . . 

Here resting a few daies they [Bacon and followers] con- 
certed the burning of the town . . , and laid the whole town 
(with church and state house) in ashes, saying the rogues should 
harbor no more there. 

On these reiterated molestacons [molestations] Bacon calls a 
convention at Midle plantation 15 miles from Jamestown in the 
month of August 1676, where . . . writts were by him issued 
for an assembly ; and . . . one proclamation commanded all men 
in the land on paine of death to joine him, and retire into the 
wilderness on the arrivall of forces expected from England, and 
oppose them untill they should propose or accept to treat of an 
accomodation ... so the whole land must have become an Acel- 
dama^ if God's exceeding mercy had not timely removed him. . . . 

The govern'r went in the fflet to London . . . and by next 
shipping came back a person who waited on his hono'r in the 

1 Aceldama, " the Field of Blood," or Potter's Field, for the burial 
of paupers in Jerusalem. Said to have been purchased with the thirty 
pieces of silver for which Judas sold Christ. 



34 TJie EstablisJmieiit of the English 

voyage ; from whom a report was whispered about that the 
king did say that old fool has hanged more men in that naked 
country than he [the king] had done for the murther of his 
ffather, whereof the govern'r hearing dyed soon after without 
having seen his majestie ; which shuts up this tragedy. 

The New England Settlements 

13. The com- William Bradford was governor of Plymouth Colony 
grfms, 1620 ' almost continuously from 1621 to his death in 1657. His 
[35] history "Of Plimoth Plantation," begun in 1630, is the 
source from which the material for all the subsequent histo- 
ries of the pioneer colony in New England has been chiefly 
drawn. The precious manuscript of Bradford's history 
disappeared from the library in the tower of the Old 
South Church, Boston, at the time of the American Revo- 
lution. It was found in 1855 in the library of Fulham 
Palace, the residence of the Bishop of London ; and after 
repeated and urgent requests it was given by the English 
government to the State of Massachusetts. It is now ex- 
hibited to visitors in the State Library at the Capitol. The 
following JDassages contain an account of the flight of the 
Separatists to Holland, part of the final letter written to 
the Pilgrims by their pastor John Robinson, on their depar- 
ture for America, and the Compact which they made in the 
cabin of the Mayflozver just before landing at Plymouth. 

[The Separatists] yet seeing themselves thus molested ^ and 
that ther was no hope of their continuance ther [in England], 
by a jointe consente they resolved to goe into the Low Countries 
[Holland], wher they heard was freedom of religion for all men. 
... So affter they had continued togeither aboute a year, and 

1 James I on his accession in 1603 determined to make all the 
Puritans and Brownists, or Separatists, conform to the worship of the 
Church of England or drive them out of the land. 



TJie English Colonies 35 

kept their meetings every Saboth in one place or other, exercis- 
ing the worship of God amongstt themselves, notwithstanding 
all the dilligence and malice of their adversaries, and seeing 
they could no longer continue in that condition, they resolved 
to get over into Holland as they could : which was in the year 
1607 and 1608. . . . But to go into a country they knew not 
(but by hearsay) wher they must learne a new language and 
get their livings they knew not how ... it was by many thought 
an adventure almost desperate . . . and a misserie worse than 
death. Espetially seeing they were not aquainted with trad[e]s 
nor traffique (by which that country doth subsiste) but had only 
been used to a plaine countrie life, and the innocent trade of 
husbandrey . . . but they rested on God's providence, and knew 
whom they had beleeved. . . . 

Being now come into the Low Countries they saw many 
goodly and fortified cities strongly walled and guarded with 
troops of armed men.^ They also heard a strange and uncouth 
language and beheld the differente manners and customes of 
the people with their strange fashons and attires . . . and though 
they saw f aire and bewtifull cities, flowing with abundance of all 
sorts of welth and riches, yet it was not long before they saw 
the grimme and grisly face of povertie coming upon them like 
an armed man, with whom they must buckle and incounter . . . 
yet by God's assistance they prevailed and got the victorie. . . . 
Being thus settled . . . they continued many years [1608-1620] 
in a comfortable condition, injoying much sweete and delighte- 
full societie and spirituall comfort together in the wayes of God, 
under the able ministrie and prudente governmente of Mr. John 
Robinson and Mr. William Brewster . . . and if at any time any 
differences arose or offences broak out . . . they were nipt in 
the head betim[e]s or otherwise so well composed, as still love, 
peace and communion was continued. ... 

After ten or a dozen years' residence in Holland, the 
Pilgrims began to think of removing to the New World, 

1 The Dutch under William of Orange and his brothers had been 
maintaining a valiant war of independence against Philip of Spain since 
the year 1567. 



36 The Establishment of the English 

" not out of any newfangledness or other such Hke giddie 
humor . . . but for sundrie weightie and soUd reasons," 
which were their growing numbers, their pohtical and 
social restraint in a foreign land, their disapproval of the 
" Continental morals," and their "great hope and inward 
zeall " of converting the Indians to Christianity. 

So being ready to departe, they had a day of solleme humili- 
ation, their pastor taking his texte from Ezra 8, 21 . . . upon 
which he spente a good parte of the day very profitably. . . . 
The nexte day the wind being faire they went aborde . . . where 
truly dolfull was the sight of that sade and mournfull parting . . . 
so that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the key as 
spectators could not refraine from tears. ... At their parting 
Mr. Robinson writ a letter to the whole company. 

Lovinge Christian friends, I doe hartily in the Lord salute 
you all . . . though I be constrained for a while to be bodily 
absente from you. . . . 

Now next after heavenly peace with God and our own con- 
sciences, we are carefully to provide for peace with all men what 
in us lieth. ... As many of you are strangers, as to the persons, 
so to the infirmities one of another, [you] so stand in neede of 
more watchfullness this way, lest when shuch things fall out in 
men and women as you suspected not, you be inordinately 
affected with them. . . . 

And lastly, your intended course of civill comunitie will 
minister continuall occasion for offence, and will be as fuell for 
that fire, excepte you dilligently quench it with brotherly for- 
bearance. . . . Store up therefore patience against the evill 
day. . . . And as men are carfuU not to have a new house 
shaken with any violence before it be well setled and the parts 
firmly knite, so be you, I beseeche you, brethren, much more 
earful that the house of God, which you are and are to be, be 
not shaken with unnecessarie novelties or other oppositions at 
the first seding thereof. ... 

Lastly, whereas you are become a body politik ... let your 
wisdome and godliness appeare, not only in chusing shuch 



TJie English Colonies 37 

persons as doe entirely love and will promote the commone good, 
but also in yeelding unto them "all due honor and obedience. . . . 
Fare you well in him in whom you trust and in whom I rest. 
An unfained wellwiller of your hapie 
success in this hopefull voyage 

John Robinson 

Arriving off Cape Cod, November 11 (21), 1620, and 
realizing that they v^ere outside the jurisdiction of the Lon- 
don Company which had granted them their patent, the 
Pilgrims, in order to assure a stable government on landing, 
agreed to this famous compact in the Mayfloiver s cabin. 

In the name of God, Amen 

We whose names are under- writen, the loyal subjects of our 
dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of 
Great Britaine, Franc, and Ireland king, defender of the Faith, 
etc., having undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advance- 
mente of the Christian faith, and honour of our king and 
countrie, a voyage to plante the first colonie in the Northerne 
parts of Virginia, doe by these presents, solemnly and mutualy 
in the presence of God, and of one another, covenant and com- 
bine ourselves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better 
ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends afore- 
said : and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute and frame 
such just and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions and 
offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and 
convenient for the generall good of the Colonie, unto which we 
promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes w^herof 
we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd, the 1 1 
of November, in the year of the raigne of our soveraigne Lord, 
King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, 
and of Scotland the fiftie fourth. An° : Dom. 1620. 

The character of the New England Puritan has always 14. lUustra- 
inspired conflicting sentiments in the mind of his critic. taTcharacter 
Steadfastness, zeal, and intrepid virtue were joined in him ^43] 
with a harsh and intolerant judgment of the least deviation 



38 TJie EstablisJimcnt of the English 

from the conduct and creed prescribed by the orthodox 
clergy. Sweet reasonableness was regarded as a weak 
surrender of principle. Thomas Hutchinson, the royal 
Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts on the eve of the 
American Revolution, writes of the Puritans in his ''His- 
tory of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay" : 

In the beginning of 1649 ^i^^ ^^- Winthrop, the father of 
the country, in the 63d year of his age. His death caused a 
general grief through the colony. . . . He was of more Catholic 
spirit than some of his bretheren before he left England, but 
afterwards he grew more contracted, and was disposed to 
lay too great stress on indifferent matters. He first proposed 
leaving off the custom of drinking one to another, and then 
procured a law to prohibit it. He pursued with great vehe- 
mence Mr. Vane's adherents.^ . . . Some writers say that upon 
his deathbed when Mr. Dudley pressed him to sign an order of 
banishment of an heterodox person, he refused saying, '' he had 
done too much of that work already." Mr. Endicott succeeded 
him in the place of governor, and Mr. Dudley took the place 
of deputy governor. 

I fancy that about this time the scrupulosity of the good 
people of this colony was at its height. Soon after Mr. Win- 
throp's death, Mr. Endicot, the most rigid of any of the magis- 
trates, being governor, he joined with the other assistants in an 
association against long hair. 

In every age indifferent things have been condemned as sin- 
ful, and placed among the greatest immoralities. The text 
against long hair in Corinthians,^ as contrary to the custom in 
the apostle's day, induced our ancestors to think it criminal in 
all ages and all nations. ... I have wondered that the text 
in Leviticus [xix, 27] ''Ye shall not round the corners of your 
heads," was never brought against short hair. . . . The rule in 

1 Sir Harry Vane, Governor of Massachusetts 1636-1637, supported 
Anne Hutchinson in theological heresy. He played a leading part in 
the English Civil War of 1642, and was executed twenty years later 
by Charles II. 

I Cor. xi, 14 : " If a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him." 



The English Colojiies 39 

New England was, that none should wear their hair below their 
ears. In a clergyman it was said to be the greater offence. . . . 
A few years before, tobacco was prohibited under a penalty, 
and the smoak of it in some manuscripts is compared to the 
smoak of the bottomless pit. Some of the clergy fell into the 
practice of smoaking, and tobacco by an act of government was 
" set at liberty." In England, periwigs came into use soon after 
the Restoration [1660]. In New England, they were an eyesore 
for thirty years after, and did not generally obtain until about the 
time of the revolution [1689], and even then the example and 
authority of . . . ministers in England besides . . . foreign 
protestant divines who wore wigs, was necessary to remove 
all scruples concerning them. 

The most famous of the Puritan ministers of New Eng- 
land was John Cotton, who came from the old Boston in 
Lincolnshire to the new Boston in Massachusetts in the 
year 1633. Settled near Cotton, both in old England and 
New England, was his distant relative, Samuel Whiting, 
who has left us a biography of him. 

Well, to Boston [England] the good man came [from Cam- 
bridge University], and for three years he preached and lived 
so amongst them that they accounted themselves happy. . . . 
But it pleased God, after three or four years being there, that 
he could not digest the ceremonies. . . . He took much pains 
in private, and read to sundry young scholars that were in his 
house, and some that came out of Germany, and had his house 
full of auditors. . . . He always preached at the election of 
mayors . . . and always (if he were at home) at the funerals 
of those of the abler sort that died. He was frequent in the 
duty of humiliation and thanksgiving : in which I have known 
him in prayer and opening the word and applying it, five or 
six hours. . . . He was of admirable candor, of unparalleled 
meekness, of rare wisdom, very loving even to those that dif- 
fered in judgment from him, yet one that held his own stoutly, 
arde tenens accurateque defendens'^ what he himself judged to 

1 " Strictly holding and painstakingly defending." 



40 The Establishment of the English 

be the truth. ... He was exceedingly beloved by the best and 
admired and reverenced of the worst of his hearers. He had many 
enemies at Boston, as well as many friends, and some that rose 
up against him and plotted secretly to undermine him, and others 
that practised more openly against him. But they were all of 
them blasted, either in their names, or in their estates, or in their 
families, or in their devices, or else came to untimely deaths ; which 
shows how God . . . owned his servant in his holy labors. . . . 

And God bringing him and his company over [to America] 
in safety . . . there grew some trouble between those that were 
to setde matters in church and Commonwealth. But Mr. Cotton 
then preaching before the General Court an excellent sermon 
out of Haggai ii. " Be strong, Zerubbabel, and be strong, Joshua, 
and be strong, ye people of the land " etc., it pleased God so 
to compose and calm spirits that all apprehensions were laid 
aside, and they were . . . much encouraged. ... I could speak 
much more : but at this present want strength. ... I am not 
like to live to see such another in New England, though I know 
that God is able to double the spirit of that Elias upon him that 
succeeds him. ... It is well for both Bostons that they had 
such a light, if they walk in the light . . . and truth that he held 
out to them. . . . Amen 

The following extract from the diary of John Cotton's 
distinguished grandson, Rev. Cotton Mather, "the Puri- 
tan saint " of Massachusetts, shows how heavy a burden 
of responsibility the Puritan laid upon his own soul. 

Butt one special Action of this Day [March 12, 1681] was 
to make and write the following : 

Resolutions as to my Walk with God 

Lord / Thou that workest in mee to zaill, help mee to resolve 
I. As to my Thoughts. 

1. To endeavour that I will keep God, and Christ, and 
Heaven much in my Thoughts. 

2. In a special manner, to watch and pray, against . . . 
ambitious Thoughts, and wandring Thoughts in the Times 
of Devotion. 



The English Colonies 41 

II. As to my Words. 

1. To bee not of many Words, and when I do speak, to do 
it with Delibei'ation. 

2. To remember my obligations to use my Tongue as the 
Lords, and not as my own. . . . 

3. Never to answer any weighty Question, without lifting up 
my Heart unto God, in a Request that Hee would help mee 
to give a 7'ight Answer. 

4. To speak HI of no Ma?i ; except, on a good Ground, and 
for a good End. 

5. Seldome to make a Visit, without contriving, what T may 
do for God i?i that visit. 

III. As to my daily Course of Duties. 

1 . To pray at least thrice, for the most part every Day. 

2. To meditate once a day. . . . 

3. To make a Custome of propounding to myself, these Three 
Questions, every Night before I sleep : 

What hath been the Mercy of God unto mee, in the Day past? 
What hath been my carriage before God, in the Day past ? 
And, If I dy this Night, is my immortal Spirit safe ? 

4. To lead a Life of heavenly Ejaculations. 

5. To bee diligent in observiiig and recording of illustrious 
Providences. 

But in all, to bee continually going unto the Lord Jesus 
Christ, as the only Physician, and Redeemer, of my Soul. 

Lord ! Thou that workest in mee to do, help mee to pe?for7n. 
Penned by, Cotton Mather ; a feeble and worthless, 
yett (^Lord! by thy Grace /) desirous to approve him- 
self a Sincere and faithful Servant of Jesus Christ. 

The XXXVIth Year of My Age 

12 d. 12 m. 1697.^ This day, thro' the Forebearance of God, I 
am thirty five Years old. When I behold, how extremely foolish 
and carnal, I still am ... at this Age, my Spirit sinks with 
Astonishment ! Lord ! I am astonished that thou has Suffer'd 

1 Twelfth day of the twelfth month, 1697. As March i was still 
generally observed as the beginning of the new year, this date is 
February 12, 1698. 



42 The EstablisJnnent of the English 

such a barreji tree, to stand thus long, among thy People ! . . . 
I did spend some Time-extraordinary [this Day] in confessing 
and bewayling the Sins of the Year past, and giving Thanks for 
the Mercies of the year; and in Supplications, that in the ensuing 
Year, I may enjoy the Gracious Presence of God with mee. . . . 
Memorandiuji. I was a little comforted with a Word spoken 
to mee, by a Gentleman, a Lawyer, who came a few months 
ago out of England, and who since hee came had sett himself 
a little to observe the People of New England : ^^ Mr. Mather, 
(said hee) I can tell you this : All the men that have any Vertue 
or any Reason in them, I find, love you, and value you, and 
honor you ; but all the base People, who are scandalous for Vice 
and Wickedness, hate you, and can't give you a good Word." 

15. "inde- From the restoration of the Stuarts to the English 
fn Massachu- throne in 1660 until their expulsion in 1688, there was 
setts, 1664 great uncertainty in the New England colonies, '' the prin- 
I^^^l cipal persons both in church and state," as Hutchinson says, 

'' being never without fearful expectations of being deprived 
of their privileges." In 1664 their fears seemed to be justi- 
fied by the tidings that some men-of-war were coming from 
England, ' ' with several gentlemen of distinction aboard 
them." The General Court (legislature) of Massachusetts 
appointed a committee to visit the ships and warn officers 
and sailors '' in their coming ashore to refresh themselves 
... to give no offence to the people and laws of the 
place." They later resolved on the following address to 
King Charles II : 

TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE 

The hu77ible supplication of the Ge?ie?'al Court of the 
Massachusetts Colony in New England 
Dread Soveraigtie 

Iff your poor subjects, who have removed themselves into a 
remote corner of the earth, to enjoy peace with God and man, 
doe, in this day of their trouble, prostrate themselves at your 



The English Colonies 43 

royal feet, and beg your favor, we hope it will be graciously 
accepted by your Majestic. And that, as the high place you sus- 
tein on earth doth number you among the gods, so you will 
imitate the God of heaven in being ready to maintain the cause 
of the afflicted, and the rights of the poor, and to receive their 
cries and addresses to that end. And we humbly beseech your 
majestic, with patience and clemency, to heare and accept our 
plain discourse, tho of somewhat greater length than would be 
comely in other or lesser cases. Wee are remote, and can speake 
but seldom, and therefore crave leave to speake the more at 
once. Wee shall not largely repeat, how that the first under- 
takers for this plantation, having, by considerable summs, pur- 
chased the right thereof, granted to the counsel established at 
Plimouth by King James your royal grandfather, did after obtain 
a patent, given and confirmed to themselves by your royal father, 
King Charles the first, wherein it is granted to them, their heirs, 
assigns, and associates forever, not only the absolute use and 
propriety of the tract of land therein mentioned, but also full 
and absolute power of governing all the people of this place, 
by men chosen from among themselves, and according to such 
lawes as they shall, from time to time, see fit to make and estab- 
lish, being not repugnant to the lawes of England (they paying 
only the fifth part of the oare of gold and silver that shall here 
be found, for and in respect of all duties, demands, exactions, 
and service whatsover) as in the said patent is more at large 
declared. Under the encouragement and security of which royal 
charter, this people did, at their own charges, transport them- 
selves, their wives, and their families over the ocean, purchase 
the lands of the natives, and plant this colony with great labor, 
hazards, cost, and difficulties, for a long time wrestling with the 
wants of a wilderness, and the burdens of a new plantation ; 
having also now above 30 yeares enjoyed the aforesaid power 
and privilege of government within themselves, as their un- 
doubted right in the sight of God and man. And having had, 
moreover, this further favor from God, and from your Maj- 
estic, that wee have received several gracious letters from your 
royal selfe, full of expressions tending to confirm us in our 
enjoyments. ... 



44 The Establishment of the English 

But what affliction of heart must it needs be unto us, that 
our sins have provoked God to permit our adversaries to set 
themselves against us by their misinformations, complaints, and 
solicitations (as some of them have made it their worke for 
many yeares) and thereby to procure a commission under the 
great seal, wherein 4 persons (one of them our knowne and 
professed enemy) are impowered to heare, receive, examine, 
and determine all complaints and appeals, in all causes and 
matters, as well military as criminal and civil, and to proceed 
in all things for settling this country according to their good 
and sound discretions, etc. Whereby, instead of being governed 
by rulers of our owne choosing (which is the fundamental privi- 
lege of our patent) and by lawes of our owne, wee are like to 
be subjected to the arbitrary power of strangers, proceeding not 
by any established law, but by their own discretions. . . . And 
tho wee have yet had but a little taste of the words or actings 
of these gentlemen, that are come over hither in this capacity 
of commissioners, yet we have had enough to confirme us in 
our feares, that their improvement of this power, . . . will end 
in the subversion of our all. We should be glad to hope that 
your Majestie's instructions (which they have not yet been 
pleased to impart unto us) may put such limitation to their busi- 
ness here, as will take off much of our feare ; but according to 
the present appearance of things we thus speak. . . . 

If these things go on (according to the present appearance) 
your subjects here will either be forced to seeke new dwellings, 
or sinke and faint under burdens that will be to them intoller- 
able. The vigor of all new endeavors in the several callings and 
occupations (either for merchandize abroad, or further sub- 
duing this wilderness at home) will be enfeebled, as we perceive 
it already begins to be, the good of converting the natives ob- 
structed, the inhabitants driven to we know not what extremities, 
and this hopeful plantation in the issue ruined. . . . 

There have also been high representations of great divisions 
and discontents amongst us, and of a necessity of sending 
commissioners to relieve the aggrieved, &c. Whereas it plainly 
appeares, that the body of this people are unanimously satisfied 
in the present government, and abhorrent from change, and 



The English Coloities 45 

that which is now offered will, instead of relieving, raise up such 
grievances as are intolerable. Wee suppose there is no govern- 
ment under heaven, wherein some discontented persons may 
not be found. And if it be a sufficient accusation against a 
government, that there are some such, who will be innocent.? 
Yet through the favor of God there are but few amongst us 
that are malcontent, and fewer that have cause to be so. 

Sir, the allknowing God knows our greatest ambition is to 
live a poor and quiet life, in a corner of the world, without of- 
fence to God or man. Wee came not into this wilderness to 
seeke great things to ourselves, and if any come after us to seeke 
them heere they will be disappointed. Wee keep ourselves 
within our line, and meddle not with matters abroad. A just 
dependence upon and subjection to your Majestic, according 
to our charter, it is far from our hearts to disacknowledge. 
Wee so highly prize your favorable aspect (tho at this great 
distance) as wee would gladly do anything that is within our 
power to purchase the continuance of it. . . . But it is a great 
unhappiness to be reduced to so hard a case, as to have no 
other testimony of our subjection and loyalty offered us but 
this, viz : to destroy our owne being, which nature teacheth us 
to preserve, or to yield up our liberties, which are far dearer 
to us than our lives, and which, had we had any feares of being 
deprived of, wee had never wandered from our fathers houses 
into these ends of the earth. . . . 

Royal Sir, it is in your power to say of your poor people in 
New England, they shall not die. If we have found favor in the 
sight of our king, let our life be given us at our petition. . . . 
Let our government live, our patent live, our magistrates live, 
our lawes and liberties live, our own religious enjoyments live, 
so shall we all yet have further cause to say, from our hearts, 
let the King live forever. And the blessings of them' that were 
ready to perish shall come upon your Majestic . . . and wee 
and ours shall have lasting cause to rejoice, that we have been 
numbred among your Majestic 's 

Most humble servants 

and suppliants 

25th of October, 1664 



46 TJie Establishment of the English 

16. The The later years of the Stuarts brought the reahzation of 

Re^voTutron- ^he worst of the New Englanders' fears. In 1684 the 
of 1689 Massachusetts Charter was revoked by Charles II, and 

1^1] on June 3, 1686, Sir Edmund Andros received from the 
new king, James II, a charter making him Captain Gen- 
eral and Governor in Chief of all New England. Andros' 
tyrannical behavior is set forth in a '' Declaration of the 
Gentlemen, Merchants, and Inhabitants of Boston and the 
Country Adjacent," published the day of his overthrow, 
April 18, 1689. 

... Sir Edmund Andross arrived as our Governour ; who be- 
sides his Power, with the Advice and Consent of his Council, to 
make Laws and raise Taxes as he pleased ; had also Authority 
by himself to Muster and Imploy all Persons residing in the 
Territory as occasion shall serve : and to transfer such Forces 
to any English Plantation in America, as occasion shall require. 
And several companies of Souldiers were now brought from Eu- 
rope, to support what was to be imposed upon us, not without 
repeated Menaces that some hundreds more were intented for us. 

The Government was no sooner in these Hands, but care 
was taken to load preferments principally upon such Men as 
were strangers to, and haters of the People : and evryones 
Observation hath noted, what Qualifications recommended a 
man to publick Offices and Employments, only here and there 
a good Man was used, where others could not easily be had. . . . 
But of all our Oppressors we were chiefly squeezed by a crew of 
abject Persons, fetched from New York to be the Tools of the 
Adversary, standing at our right hand ; by these were extraor- 
dinary and intollerable Fees extorted from evry one upon all 
occasions, without any Rules but those of their own insatiable 
Avarice and Beggary ; and even the probate of a Will must 
now cost as many Pounds perhaps as it did Shillings heretofore ; 
nor could a small Volume contain the other Illegalities done by 
these Horse-I^eches in the two or three Years that they have 
been sucking of us ; and what Laws they made it was as im- 
possible for us to know, as dangerous for us to break. . . . 



The English Colonies 47 

It was now plainly affirmed, both by some in open Council, 
and by the same in private converse, that the People in New 
England were all Slaves, and the only difference between them 
and the Slaves is in their not being bought and sold ; and it was 
a maxim delivered in open Court to us by one of the Council, 
that ive must not thi?ik the Priviledges of Englishmen would 
follow us to the end of the World: Accordingly we have been 
treated with multiplied contradictions to Magna Charta, the 
rights of which we laid claim to. Persons who did but peace- 
ably object against the raising of Taxes without an Assembly, 
have been for it fined, some twenty, some thirty, and others 
fifty Pounds. Packt and pickt Juries have been very common 
things among us. . . . Without a Verdict, yea, without a Jury 
sometimes have People been fined most unrighteously ; and 
some, not of the meanest Quality, have been kept in long and 
close Imprisonment without any least Information appearing 
against them or an Habeas Corpus allowed unto them. . . . 

Because these things could not make us miserable fast 
enough, there was a notable Discovery made of we know not 
what Elaw in all our Titles to our La7ids : and tho besides our 
purchase of them from the Natives ; and besides our actual 
peaceable unquestioned possession of them for near threescore 
Years, and besides the Promise of K. Charles II in his Procla- 
mation sent over to us in the Year 1683, That no Man here 
shall receive any Prejudice in his Free Hold or Estate . . . yet 
were we every day told, That no Man was owner of a Foot of 
Land in all the Colony ; Accordingly, Writs of Intrusion began 
everywhere to be served on People, that after all their Sweat 
and their Cost upon their formerly purchased Lands, thought 
themselves Freeholders of what they had. And the Governour 
caused the Lands pertaining to these and these particular Men, 
to be measured out for his Creatures to take possession of. . . . 

All the Council were not ingaged in these ill Actions, but 
those of them which were true Lovers of their Country were 
seldom admitted to and seldomer consulted at the Debates 
which produced these unrighteous things. Care was taken to 
keep them under Disadvantages ; and the Governor, with five 
or six more, did what they would. We bore all these and many 



48 TJic Establishment of the English 

more such Things, without making any attempt for Relief; 
only Mr. Mather,^ purely out of respect unto the Good of his 
Afflicted Country, undertook a voyage into England. . . . God 
having through many Difficulties given him to arrive at White 
Hall, the King more than once or twice promised him a certain 
Magna Chaiia for the speedy Redress of many things which 
we were groaning under : and in the meantime said that Our 
Governor should be zvritten unto, to forbear the Measures that he 
was upon. However, after this we were injured in those very 
things which were complained of. . . . 

We do therefore seize upon the Persons of those few ill Meii 
which have been (next to our Sins) the grand Authors of our 
Miseries : resolving to secure them, for what Justice, Orders 
from his Highness,^ with the English Earliame?it shall direct, 
lest, ere we are aware, we find ourselves to be given away by 
them to a Forreign Power ^ before such Orders can reach unto 
us ; for which orders now we humbly wait. In the mean time 
firmly believing, that we have endeavored nothing but what 
meer Duty to God and our Country calls for at our Hands : we 
commit our Enterprise unto the Blessing of Him who hears the 
cry of the Oppressed, and advise all our Neighbors, for whom we 
have thus ventured ourselves, to joyn with us in Prayers and all 
just Actions, for the Defence of the Land. 

There follows the letter dispatched the same day by the 
chief citizens of Boston to Governor Andros, who had 
taken refuge in the Fort in Boston Harbor : 

At the Town-House, Boston, April i8, 1689 
Sir, 

Ourselves and many others the Inhabitants of this Town, and 

the Places adjacent, being surprized with the peoples sudden 

1 Reverend Increase Mather, son-in-law of John Cotton, and father 
of Cotton Mather. See No. 14, p. 40. 

2 William, Prince of Orange, the news of whose coronation in 
February, 1689, had not yet reached New England. 

3 There was considerable fear in New England that the Roman 
Catholic King James II would betray the Puritans of New England to 
the French in Canada. See Randolph's letter, p. 50. 



The English Colonies 49 

taking of Arms; in the first motion whereof we were wholly 
ignorant, being driven by the present Accident, are necessitated 
to acquaint your Excellency, that for the quieting and securing 
of the People inhabiting in this Country from the imminent 
Dangers they many ways lie open and exposed to, And tendring 
your own Safety, We judge it necessary you forthwith surrender 
and deliver up the Government and Fortification to be preserved 
and disposed according to Order and Direction from the Crown 
of England, which suddenly is expected may arrive : promising 
all security from violence to your Self or any of your Gentlemen 
or Souldiers in Person and Estate. Otherwise we are assured 
they will endeavour the taking of the Fortification by Storm, if 
any Opposition be made. 

To Sir Edmond Andross K't 
(Signed by fifteen of the prominent citizens of Boston) 

Andros, after an attempt to escape to the frigate Rose, 
which was lying at anchor in Boston Harbor, surrendered 
and was brought to the Council House in the town, 
where he was '' confined for that night to Mr. John 
Usher's house under strong guards," and the next day 
conveyed to the Fort and held a prisoner. Among the 
''few ill Men" arrested with him was Edward Randolph, 
who was particularly odious to the Bostonians because of 
his violent condemnation of them in a report to Charles 
n in 1680, in which he accused them of usurping the 
king's prerogative in government, of refusing the oath 
of allegiance, of protecting the " murderers " of Charles I, 
of insulting the king's commissioners, of violating the 
acts of trade and navigation, and, generally, of treating 
the king's letters '.'of no more account than an old number 
of the London Gazetted At the outbreak of the "Glorious 
Revolution " Randolph was promptly put in jail, whence 
he wrote (a month later) the following letter to the Gov- 
ernor of Barbados : 



50 TJic Establishment of the English 

Gaol in Boston, May i6, '89 
Sir, 

By a heady multitude possessed with jealousyes that our 
Governor, Sir Edmund Andros, was a Papist and intended to 
bring in the French and Indians to cut off the inhabitants, a 
generall insurrection was intended and so perfected on the 
1 8th of Aprill last, that the Governor hoping to secure himself in 
our fort, missed an opportunity of going aboard the Rose 
frigott [frigate], then at anchor in the harbour, and so being 
overpowered, wee were taken prisoners of warr, as the silly 
multitude told us. . . . We have, at this day, above 100 persons 
equally concerned as conservators of the peace, but their power 
signifies nothing, further than it pleases the people ; sometymes 
they are for having their old magistrates reassume their former 
government ; sometymes to form a new modell of government ; 
but their being many more ready (and of necessity disposed) to 
pull down than build up, they know not what to be att. . . . 

I must confess that there have been ill men from New York, 
who have too much studdied the disease of this people, and both 
in courts and councills they have not been treated well. How- 
ever, nothing done can amount to countenance such an open 
rebellion . . . and the kingdome of England cannot loose this 
country nor govern it without some respect and allowance to the 
weaknes of those who are mislead, and the force of education 
and the bias of common prejudices. However we are at present 
as much distracted and as far from cementing into any sort of 
government as at the building of Babell. God onely keeps them 
from destroying us. . . . 

Sir, I wish you all happiness and remain your humble 
servant E^ Randolph 

The Proprietary Colonies 

17. Two ac- Isaac Jogues, a devoted Jesuit missionary to New France 

earw New (Canada), was captured by a party of Mohawk Indians in 

York, 1643, 1642 on his way to his mission field among the Hurons. 

[59] After a year of cruel torture and immanent fear of death, 



The EnglisJi Colognes 5 1 

as he was dragged from one Mohawk town to another, 
Jogues escaped from his captors and fled to the Dutch at 
Fort Orange (Albany). Thence he was sent down the 
Hudson to New Amsterdam (New York), where Governor 
Kieft received him kindly and gave him means to return 
to France. The zealous missionary came back to the new 
world, only to suffer martyrdom at the scene of his former 
tortures. Shortly before his death Jogues wrote the follow- 
ing description of New Netherland as he saw it in 1643 : 

New Holland — which the Dutch call, in Latin Novum 
Belgium, in their own language, Nieuw Nederland, that is to 
say New Netherlands — is situated between Virginia and New 
England. The entrance to the River which some call the River 
Nassau, or the great River of the North, to distinguish it from 
another which they call South River (and some charts, I believe, 
that I have recently seen, the River Maurice ^) is in the latitude 
of 40 degrees, 30 minutes. Its channel is deep and navigable 
by the largest ships, which go up to Manhattes [Manhattan] 
Island, which is 7 leagues in circumference ; thereon is a fort 
intended to serve as a nucleus for a town to be built, and to be 
called New Amsterdam. . . . 

There may be, on the Island of Manhate and in its environs, 
about 4 or five hundred men of various sects and nations ; the 
Director General told me that there were eighteen different 
languages represented. The inhabitants are scattered here and 
there, up and down the river, according as the beauty or con- 
venience of a site appeals to each one to settle. Some artisans, 
however, who work at their trades, are located under cover of 
the fort : while all the rest are exposed to the incursions of the 
savages, who in the year 1643, when I was there, actually killed 
about forty Dutchmen and burned many houses, and barns filled 
with wheat. 

1 The Hudson, or North, River was called in the early days of New 
Netherland either the Nassau or the Maurice, after the Dutch general 
Prince Maurice of Nassau, who died in 1625. The South River was the 
Delaware. 



52 The Establishment of the English 

The River, which is very straight, and flows directly from 
North to South, is at least a league wide before the Fort. The 
ships are at anchor in a bay which forms the other side of the 
island, and they can be defended by the Fort. 

Shortly before I arrived there 3 large ships of 300 tons had 
come to load wheat. Two had received their cargo, but the 3d 
could not be laden because savages had burned part of the grain. 
These ships had sailed from the West Indies, where the West 
India Company usually maintains seventeen war ships. 

There is no exercise of Religion except the Calvinist ; and all 
but Calvinists are forbidden to enter the colony ; still the orders 
are not obeyed, for besides Calvinists there are in this settle- 
ment Catholics, English Puritans, Lutherans, Anabaptists whom 
they call Mnistes (Mennonites), etc. When any one comes for 
the first time to dwell in the country they furnish him horses, 
cows, etc., and give him provisions — all which he repays when 
he is well settled : and as for lands, at the end of ten years he 
gives the Company of the West indies a tenth of the produce 
that he gathers. 

This country has for limits on the New England side a River 
which they call the Fresh River, which serves as a boundary 
between them and the English ; ^ nevertheless the English ap- 
proach them very closely, preferring to have lands among the 
Dutch, who require nothing from them, to depending upon Eng- 
lish Milords, who exact rents and like to put on airs of being 
absolute. On the other side — the Southern, toward Virginia — 
it has for limits the River which they call South River, on which 
there is also a Dutch settlement^; but at its entrance the Swedes 
have another, extremely well equipped with cannon and people. 
It is believed that these Swedes are maintained by Amsterdam 
merchants, incensed because the Company of the West Indies 
monopolizes all the trade of these regions. . . . 

1 The Fresh River (Connecticut) was named in 1614 by Adrian 
Block. For the boundary treaty between Dutch and EngHsh, see No. 18, 

P-59- 

2 Fort Nassau (near Gloucester, New Jersey) on the Delaware, 
settled in 1623. 



The English Colonies 53 

During about 50 years the Dutch have frequented these re- 
gions.^ In the year 161 5 the fort was begun; about 20 years 
ago they began to make a settlement : and now there is already 
some little trade with Virginia and New England. 

The first arrivals found lands there quite suitable for use, 
already cleared by the savages, who tilled their fields there. 
Those who have come since have made clearings in the woods, 
which are commonly of oak. The lands are good. Deer hunt- 
ing is abundant toward autumn. There are some dwellings built 
of stone : they make the lime with oyster shells, of which there 
are great heaps made in former times by the savages, who live 
in part by that fishery. 

The climate there is very mild : as the region is situated at 
40 and two thirds degrees, there are plenty of European fruits, 
as apples, pears, cherries. I arrived there in October, and even 
then I found many Peaches. Ascending the River as far as the 
43d degree, you find the 2nd settlement [Albany], which the 
flow and Ebb of the tide reaches, but extends no further. Ships 
of 100 and a hundred and twenty tons can land there. . . . 

Eighteen years after Jogues' visit another traveler pass- 
ing through New Amsterdam wrote a ''Description of the 
Towne of Mannadens," 1661. This brief document (dis- 
covered a few years ago in London) is anonymous. The 
author may have been one of the company of Governor 
Winthrop of Connecticut, who in the year the '' Descrip- 
tion " was written was commissioned to obtain a charter 
for Connecticut, and set sail from New Amsterdam in 
the Dutch vessel De Trouzv. After describing the " Easter- 
side," the "Wester-side," and the ''Souther-side or round- 
head " (Battery Point) of the town, the author continues : 

Within the towne, in the midway between the N. W. corner 
and N. E. gate, the ground hath a smal descent on each side 

1 This is an exaggeration. The Dutch had " frequented " the regions 
for only about thirty years at the time of Jogues' visit in 1643. 



54 TJie EstablisJimcnt of the Ejiglish 

much alike, and so continues through the towne unto the arme 
of water on the Easter-side of the Towne : by help of this de- 
scent they have made a gut almost through the Towne, keyed 
it on both sides with timber and boards as far in as the three 
small bridges : and near the coming into the gut they have built 
two firme timber bridges with railes on each side. At low water 
the gut is dry, at high water boats come into it, passing under 
the two bridges, and go as far as the 3 small bridges.^ In the 
country stand houses in several places. 

The bay between Long iland and the maine [sea] below the 
town and Southwest of Nut iland [Governor's Island] within the 
heads,^ is 6 mile broad, and from the towne unto the heads 'tis 
8 mile. ... 

The towne lyeth about 40 deg. lat., hath good air, and is 
healthy, inhabited with severall sorts of trades men and mar- 
chants and mariners, whereby it has much trade, of beaver, 
otter, musk, and other skins from the Indians and from the 
other towns in the River and Contry inhabitants thereabouts. 
For payment give wampen and Peage^ many of the indians 
making, w'''' they receave of them for linnen cloth and other 
manufactures brought from Holland. 

From Long iland they have beef, pork, wheat, butter, some 
tobacco, wampen and peage. From New England beef, sheep, 
wheat, flower, bisket, malt, fish, butter, cider-apples, tar, iron, 
wampen and peage. From Virginia, store of tobacco, oxhides 
dried, some beef, pork and fruit, and for payment give Holland 
and other linnen, canvage [canvas], tape, thrid [thread], cordage, 
brass, Hading cloth, stuffs, stockings, spices, fruit, all sorts of iron 
work, wine. Brandy, Annis, salt, and all useful manufactures. . . . 

From Amsterdam come each year 7 or 8 big ships with 
passengers and all sorts of goods, and they lade back beaver 

1 The gut, or canal, ran through the present Broad Street, continuing 
north nearly to Beaver Street. It was constructed in 1657- 1659 to drain 
the swamp on the east side of the town. 

2 The " heads" are the headlands (Dutch, Hoofden) of Staten Island 
and Bay Ridge just above the entrance to New York harbor, at the 
Narrows. 

8 Wampen and Peage = wampumpeag or wampum, the polished 
shell beads which the Indians used commonly for money. 



The English Colonies 55 

and other skins, dry oxehides, and Virginia tobacco. Tis said 
that each year is carried from thence above 20000 sterl. value 
in beaver skins only. 

The Governor of Manados and New Netherland [so called 
by the Hollanders] is called Peter Stazan [Stuyvesant]. He 
exerciseth his authority from thence southward [towards Vir- 
ginia] as far as Dillow-bay [Delaware Bay], being about 40 
leagues. The Suedes had a plantation in Dillow-bay formerly ; 
but of late years the Hollanders went there [1655], dismissed 
the Suedes, seated themselves there, have trade for beaver, etc. 
He exercises also authority Eastwards towards New England 
unto West Chester, w"^'' is about 20 miles and inhabited by Eng- 
lish. Also on Long iland inhabitants as far as Osterbay [Oyster 
Bay]. . . . The said iland is in length 120 miles east and west, 
between 40 and 41 deg. lat., a good land and healthy. The other 
part of the said iland Eastward from Osterbay is under the 
authority of the New England Colonies, as it stretches itself on 
their coast. The christian inhabitants are most of them English. 

In the early days of the Dutch settlement at New Am- is. Rivalry 
sterdam kindly feelings existed between them and the Pil- D^iitcrand 
grim settlers at Plymouth, as the following extract from English in 

„ T-.iri»«<T ii>)i • • t^® Connec- 

Governor Bradiora s Letter-book ^ attests, written in ticut valley, 
answer to a letter from Isaac de Rasieres, Secretary of ^627-1650 
the Colony at New Amsterdam, March 19, 1627. [^°^ 

To the Honourable and Worshipful the Director and Council 
of New Netherland, our very loving and worthy friends and 
christian neighbours. 

The Governour and Council of Plymouth in New England 
wish youj. Honours and Worships all happiness, and prosperity 
in this life, and eternal rest and glory with Christ Jesus our Lord 
in the world to come. 

1 This letter book like the manuscript of " Plimoth Plantation" (see 
No. 13, p. 34) disappeared from its place of deposit in the tower of the 
Old South Church, Boston, at the time of the American Revolution. 
It was found in a mutilated condition in a grocer's shop in Halifax, 
in 1894, and published by the Massachusetts Historical Society. 



56 The Estahlislnncut of the English 

We have received your letters wherein appeareth your good 
will and friendship toward us, but is expressed with overhigh 
titles, and more than belongs to us, or than is meet for us to 
receive : But for your good will and congratulation of our 
prosperity in this small beginning of our poor colony, we are 
much bound unto you, and with many thanks do acknowledge 
the same. . . . It is to us no small joy to learn that it hath 
pleased God to move his Majesty's heart to confirm that ancient 
amity, alliance and friendship, and other contracts formerly 
made ... the better to resist the pride of that common enemy 
the Spaniards, from whose cruelty the Lord keep us both, and 
our native countries. Now forasmuch as this is sufficient to 
unite us together in love, and good neighborhood in all our 
dealings ; yet are many of us further tied by the good and 
courteous entreaty [treatment] which we have found in your 
country ; having lived there many years with freedom and good 
content. . . . Likewise for your friendly proposition and offer 
to accommodate and help us with any commodities and mer- 
chandize which you have and we want, either for beaver, otters, 
or other wares, is to us very acceptable, and we doubt not but 
in short time, we may have profitable commerce and trade 
together: But you may please to understand that we are but 
particular colony or plantation in this land, there being divers 
others besides, whom it hath pleased those Honorable Lords of 
his Majesty's Council for New England to grant the like com- 
mission and ample privilege to them (as to us) for their better 
profit and subsistence. . . . Yet for our parts, we shall not go 
about to molest or trouble you in any thing . . . only we desire 
that you would forbear to trade with the natives in this bay 
and river of Narragansett and Sowames which is (as it were) 
at our doors. 

May it please you further to understand, that for this year 
we are fully supplied with all necessaries, both for clothing and 
other things ; but it may fall out that hereafter we shall deal 
with you, if your rates be reasonable. . . . 

Thus ho]3ing that you will pardon and excuse us for our 
rude and imperfect writing in your language, and take it in 
good part ; because for want of use [practice], we cannot so 



The English Colonies 57 

well express that we understand ; nor happily understand every- 
thing so fully as we should. And so we humbly pray the Lord, 
for his mercy's sake, that he will take both us and our native 
countries, into his holy protection and defence. Amen. 

By the Governour and Council, 
your Honours' and Worships' very 
good friends and neighbours 
New Plymouth, March 19th 

"After this," as the historian l^)radford writes, " ther 
was many passages between them both by letters and other 
entercourse, and they had some profitable commerce to- 
gether for diverce years till other occasions interrupted 
the same." The " other occasions " were signs of rivalry 
between the Dutch and the English for the valley of the 
Connecticut River. The Dutch built Fort Good Hope (on 
the site of Hartford), but did not have sufficient men to 
hold it. The English then 

invaded and usurped the entire Fresh river, and finally sunk so 
low in shamelcssness that they seized in the year 1640 the 
Company's land around the Fort . . . beat the Company's 
people with sticks and clubs . . . forcibly threw their plows and 
other implements into the river . . . and impounded their horses. 

In July, 1649, the Dutch of New Netherland sent a 
Remonstrance to the States General in Holland, recount- 
ing these outrages and asserting the claim of the Dutch 
to the Fresh River. 

In the beginning, before the English were ever spoken of, 
our people, as we find it written, first carefully explored and 
discovered the northern parts of New Netherland and some 
distance on the other side of Cape Cod. And even planted an 
ensign on, and took possession of Cape Cod. Anno 16 14, our 
traders not only trafficked at the Fresh River, but had also 
ascended it before any English people had ever dreamed of 



58 The EstablisJiment of the English 

coming there ; the latter arrived there for the first time in the 
year 1636, after our Fort Good Hope had been a long time in 
existence, and almost all the land on both sides of the river had 
been bought by our people from the Indians, which purchase 
took place principally in the year 1632 : and Kievits hook 
[Saybrook Point] was purchased at that time also by one Hans 
Eencluys, an officer of the Company. The State's arms were 
also affixed at this Hook to a tree in token of possession, but 
the English, who still occupy the Fresh River, threw them down, 
and engraved a fool's face in their stead. Whether this was 
done by authority or not we cannot say : such is probable 
and no other than an affirmative opinion can be entertained ; 
this much has come to pass — they have been informed of it 
in various letters, which have never produced any result ; but 
they have in addition, contra jus gentium per fas et nefas} in- 
vaded the whole, because, as they say, the land lay unoccupied 
and waste, which was none of their business, and, besides, was 
not true ; for on the river a fort had already been erected, 
which continued to be occupied by a garrison. Adjoining the 
fort was also a neat bouwery [farm] belonging to the Dutch 
or the Company ; and most of the land was purchased and 
owned. . . . 

All the villages settled by the English from New Holland or 
Cape Cod unto Stamford, within the Dutch limits, amount to 
about thirty, and may be estimated at nearly five thousand 
persons capable of bearing arms ; their goats and hogs cannot 
be stated. . . . There are divers places which cannot be well 
put down as villages and yet are the beginnings of them. 
Among the whole of these, the Rodenbergh or New Haven is 
the principal ; it has a governor, contains about thirteen hun- 
dred and forty families, and is a province or member of New 
England,^ there being four in all. This place was begun eleven 
years ago, in the year 1638, and they have since hived further 
out and formed Milford, Stratford, Stamford and the Trading 
House already referred to. 

1 " Contrary to the law of nations, and right or wrong." 

2 That is, the New England Confederation, formed in 1643 by the 
colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. 



The EiiglisJi Colonies 59 

Director Kieft hath caused divers protests, both in Latin and 
other languages to be served on these people, commanding 
them ... to desist from their proceedings and usurpations ; 
and in case of refusal warning them thereby that satisfaction 
should be required of them, some time or other, according as 
circumstances might allow ; but it was knocking at a deaf man's 
door, for they did not heed it, nor give it any attention ; . . . 
General Stuyvesant hath also had repeated differences with 
them on this subject, but it remains in statu qiw. The farthest 
that they have ever been willing to come is, to declare that the 
matter could never be arranged in this country, and that they 
were content and very desirous that their High Mightinesses^ 
should arrange it with their Sovereigns ; and this is very neces- 
sary, inasmuch as the English already occupy and have seized 
nearly the half of New Netherland ... so it is earnestly to 
be desired that their High Mightinesses would please to press 
this matter before it proceed further, and the breach become 
irreparable. 

In the year following this spirited protest (1650) com- 
missioners from Governor Stuyvesant and the New Eng- 
land colonies agreed on a boundary line between New 
Netherland and New England. 

Articles of agreement made and concluded at Hartford upon 
Connecticut, Sept. 19, 1650, betwixt the delegates of the honored 
commissioners of the united English colonies, and the delegates 
of Peter Stuyvesant, governor generall of Newe Netherlands. 
Concerning the bounds and lymits betwixt the Englishe united 
Collonies and the Dutch province of New Netherlands, wee 
agree and determine as followeth. 

I. That upon Long-Island a Line run from the westermost 
part of Oyster-bay and so in a streight and direct line to the 
sea, shall be the bounds betweene the Englishe and the Dutch 
there : the easterly part to belonge to the English, the wester- 
most part to the Dutch. 

1 The States General of the Netherlands. 



6o The Establishment of the English 

2. The bounds upon the maine [main-land] to begin upon 
the west side of Greenwich bay, being about 4 miles from 
Stamford, and so to run a westerly line 20 miles up into the 
country, and after as it shall be agreed by the two governments 
of the Dutch and Newe Haven, provided the said line runn not 
within tenn miles of Hudson's river. . . . 

3. That the Dutch shall hould and enjoy all the lands in 
Hartford that they are actually in possession of, knowne or 
sett out by certaine merkes [marks] and boundes, and all the 
remainder of said lands on both sides of Connecticut river, to 
be and remaine to the English there. 

And it is agreed that the aforesaid bounds and lymyts . . . 
shall be observed . . . both by the Englishe of the united Collonies 
and all the Dutch nation, without any encroachment or moles- 
tation, until a full determination be agreed upon in Europe, by 
mutual consent of the two states of England and Holland. . . . 
Symon Bradstreete Tho : Willet 

Tho : Bruce Theo : Baxter 

19. New Between 1650 and 1675 rivalry for the carrying trade 

bewmes^New ^^ ^^^ "^oxXd gave rise to three wars between Holland and 
York, 1664 England. An incident in this struggle was the seizure of 
[60] ]sjg^ Netherland, in 1664, by an English expedition and 

the transfer of the control of the Dutch colony to the 
King's brother, James, Duke of York. The town council 
of New Amsterdam described the surrender of the colony 
to the English in the following letter written to the Direc- 
tors of the West India Company at Amsterdam : 

Right Honorable Lords : 

We, your Honors' loyal, sorrowful, and desolate subjects 
cannot neglect nor keep from relating the event, which through 
God's pleasure thus unexpectedly happened to us in consequence 
of your Honors' neglect and forgetf ulness of your promise — to 
wit, the arrival here, of late, of four King's frigates from England, 
sent hither by his Majesty and his brother, the Duke of York, 
with commission to reduce not only this place, but also the whole 



The English Colonies 6i 

New Netherland under his Majesty's authority, whereunto they 
brought with them a large body of soldiers, provided with con- 
siderable ammunition. On board of one of the frigates were 
about four hundred and fifty as well soldiers as seamen, and the 
others in proportion. 

The frigates being come together in front of Najac in the Bay,^ 
Richard Nicolls, the admiral, who is ruling here at present as 
Governor, sent a letter to our Director General [Stuyvesant], 
communicating therein the cause of his coming and his wish. 
On this unexpected letter, the General sent for us to determine 
what was to be done herein. • Whereupon it was resolved and 
decided to send some commissioners thither to argue the matter 
with the General [Nicolls] and his commissioners, who were so 
sent for this purpose twice, but received no answer, than that 
they [the English] were not come here to dispute about it, but 
to execute their order and commission without fail, either peace- 
ably or by force, and if they [the Dutch] had anything to dispute 
about it, it must be done with His Majesty of England. . . . 

But meanwhile they were not idle ; they approached with their 
four frigates, two of which passed in front of the fort, the other 
anchored about Nooten [Governor's] Island, and with five com- 
panies of soldiers encamped themselves at the ferry, opposite 
this place, together with a newly raised company of horse and a 
party of new soldiers, both from the North and from Long Island, 
mostly our deadly enemies, who expected nothing else than pillage, 
plunder, and bloodshed, as men could perceive by their cursing 
and talking, when mention was made of a capitulation. 

Finally, being then surrounded, we saw little means of deliver- 
ance ; we resolved what ought to be here done, and after we had 
well inquired into our strength and had found it to be full fifteen 
hundred souls strong in this place, but of whom not two hundred 
and fifty men are capable of bearing arms exclusive of the soldiers, 
who were about one hundred and fifty strong, wholly unprovided 
with powder both in the city and in the fort ; yea, not more than 
six hundred pounds were found in the fort, besides seven hun- 
dred pounds unserviceable ; also because the farmers, the third 

1 Nyack or Gravesend Bay, just below the Narrows, between New 
Utrecht and Coney Island. 



62 The Establishment of the English 

man of whom was called out, refused, we with the greater portion 
of the inhabitants considered it necessary to remonstrate with 
our Director General and Council, that their Honors might con- 
sent to a capitulation, whereunto we labored according to our 
duty and had much trouble ; and laid down and considered all 
the difficulties, which should arise from our not being able to 
resist such an enemy, as they besides could receive a much 
greater force than they had under their command. 

The Director Generall and Council at length consented there- 
unto, whereto commissioners were sent to the admiral, who 
notified him that it was resolved' to come to terms in order to 
prevent the shedding of blood, if a good agreement could be 
concluded. Six persons were commissioned on each side for this 
purpose to treat on this matter, as they have done and concluded 
in manner as appears by the articles annexed. How that will 
result time shall tell. 

Meanwhile, since we have no longer to depend on your 
Honors' promises of protection, we, with all the poor, sorrowing 
and abandoned commonalty here, must fiy for refuge to Almighty 
God, not doubting but He will stand by us in this sorely afflicting 
conjunction and no more depart from us : And we remain 
Your sorrowful and abandoned subjects 
Pieter Tonneman [and six others] 

Done in Jorck [York] heretofore named Amsterdam in New 
Netherland Anno 1664, the i6th September. 

The *' articles annexed," to which the councilmen refer, 
granted very liberal terms to the surrendered Dutchmen. 
Even the stern old Governor Stuyvesant came back from 
Holland to live under the English government at his farm, 
the " Great Bouwery," until his death in 1672. In the 
articles it was stated that . . . 

3. All people shall still continue free denizens, and enjoy 
their lands, houses, goods, shipps, wheresoever they are within 
this country. . . . 



Tlie English Colonies 63 

4. If any inhabitant have a mind to remove himself he shall 
have a year and six weeks from this day to remove himself, wife, 
children, servants, goods, and to dispose of his lands here. 

6. . . . Dutch vessels may freely come hither, and any of 
the Dutch may freely return home, or send any sort of merchan- 
dise home in vessels of their own country. 

8. The Dutch here shall enjoy the liberty of their consciences 
in divine worship and Church discipline. 

9. No Dutchman here, or Dutch ship here, shall, upon any 
occasion be prest to serve in war, against any nation whatever. 

10. That the townsmen of the Manhatoes [Manhattan] shall 
not have any soldier quartered upon them without being satisfied 
and paid for them by their officers. . . . 

21. That the town of Manhatans shall choose Deputies, and 
those Deputies shall have free voices in all public affairs, as much 
as any other Deputies. 

During the course of the American Revolution, Robert 20. The rise 
Proud of Philadelphia wrote, and dedicated to the " de- kers.^about 
scendants of the first colonists and early settlers," his 1650 
''History of Pennsylvania" (i 776-1 780), in which he i^^l 
gives the following account of the rise of the Society of 
Friends, or the Quakers.^ 

Near the middle of the 17 th century, during the civil war, 
in England, when men were tearing each other in pieces, and 
when confusion and bloodshed had overspread the nation, many 
sober and thinking persons of the different religious societies, 
weighing the uncertainty of human affairs, and beholding the 
various vicissitudes in the political system, after having examined 

1 " The name of Quakers, or Tremblers, hath been in reproach, by their 
enemies cast upon them, which serveth to distinguish them from others, 
though not assumed by them : yet as the Christians of old, albeit the 
name of Christian was cast upon them by way of reproach, gloried in 
it, as desiring above all things to be accounted the followers of Christ ; 
so they also are glad the world reproacheth them as such, who tremble 
before the Lord, and who work out their salvation in fear and trembling.'" 
Robert Proud, History of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1797, Vol. I, 
p. 30, note. 



64 The Establishme7it of the English 

the many vain and futile opinions, and absurd customs, in religion, 
which were either imposed, practised, or insisted on by the various 
professors of Christianity^ under all denominations, in that country, 
withdrew themselves from their assemblies for divine worship ; 
and having their minds turned to what appeared to them more 
rational, and consistent with a rightly informed understanding, 
and a life more congruous, or agreeable, to the mind of that 
Deity which is spiritual, and communicates his goodness and 
knowledge more nearly through a medium of his own nature ; 
and places the human mind above the reach of terrestrial influ- 
ence ; they thence fell into that practical belief, and chiistian 
conduct, which gave rise to this religious society. 

It was not until the year 1650 that the name of Quakers was 
imposed on them ; who had before generally gone under the de- 
nomination of p7'ofessors, or children, of the light ; but the most 
common appellation, by which they distinguish themselves from 
others, even to this day, is by the name of F?'ie7ids. . . . 

This is the Jirst and chief est principle held by them, viz. : 
That there is somewhat of God, some light, some grace, 
some power, some measure of the spirit, some divine, spiritual, 
heavenly, substantial life and virtue, in all men ; which . . . 
leads, draws, moves and inclines the mind of man to righteous- 
ness, and seeks to leaven him, as he gives way thereto, into the 
nature of itself. . , . And in affirming of this, they do not at all 
exalt self or natiu-e, as do the Socinians [Unitarians] ; in that 
they freely acknowledge that man's nature is defiled and cor- 
rupted, and unable to help him one step, in order to salvation. . . , 
Nor do they believe this seed, light and grace to be any part of 
man's nature . . . , but that it is a free grace and gift of God, 
freely given to all men, in order to bring them out of th^fall, 
and lead them to life eternal. . . . 

Consistent with the nature of this universal piinciple . . . ap- 
pears to be their worship ; which, according to the account of 
it given by themselves, was more divested of those numerous 
external and bodily exercises and performances, which either 
the ignorance or ingenuity of men had introduced, under the 
specious pretence of thereby rendering themselves more accept- 
able to a Spiritual Being, than that of any other religious societies 



The English Colonies 65 

known to them, at that time, under the name of Christians: 
— a worship which they professed to be spiritual, and performed 
in the mind ; not being confined to particular persons, times, 
places, nor ceremonies . . . according to the New Testament, 
which expressly declares, " that the worship of God ought to be 
performed in spirit and in truth."" This is the only precept, or 
declaration, concerning divine worship ; and the manner of it, 
which is left us by the author of Christianity. . . . 

Of their ministers and ministry, W. Penn speaks as follows : 
" They were changed men themselves before they went abroad 
to change others. Their hearts were rent as well as their gar- 
ments ; and they knew the power and work of God upon them 

'' They coveted no man's silver, gold, nor apparel ; sought no 
man's goods ; but sought them, and the salvation of their souls : 
whose hands supplied their own necessities, working honestly 
for bread, for themselves and families. . . . 

'^ The bent and stress of their ministry was conversion to God, 
regeneration and holiness. Not schemes of doctrines and ver- 
bal creeds. . . . 

" They did not shew any disposition to revenge, when it was 
at any time in their power, but forgave their cruel enemies; 
shewing mercy to those, who had none for them. . . . 

" Their known great constancy and patience in suffering . . . 
and that sometimes unto death, by beatings, bruisings, long and 
crowded imprisonments, and noisesome dungeons. Four of them 
in New England dying by the hands of the executioner, purely 
for preaching among that people. 

" Their plainness with those in authority, like the ancient 
prophets, not fearing to tell them to their faces, of their private 
and public sins : and their prophecies to them of their afflictions 
and downfall, when in the top of their glory : — Also for some 
national judgments : as of the plague and fire of London, in 
express terms." 

They disused vain compliments and flattering titles, bowing, 
kneeling, and uncovering the head to mankind. . . . They also 
used the plain language of thou and thee to a single person, 
whatever was his degree among men. . . . Nor could they 
humour the custom of good night, good fnorrow, God speed: for 



66 TJic Establishment of the English 

they knew the night was good, and the day was good, without 
wishing of either; and that, in the other expression, the holy 
name of God was too lightly, and unthoughtfully used, and 
therefore taken in vain. . . . Their disuse of all gaming, and 
vaiji sp07is\ as the frequenting oi plays, horse-races, &c., was a 
custom strictly and constantly adhered to by them. . . . Their 
entire disuse of going to laiv with one another was a singular 
instance of their uniform oractice of christian love and charity. . . . 
The last thing that I sh .^i mention is their maintaining all their 
own poor, at their own expe?ice . . . (besides contributing toward 
the support of the poor of other societies in all covcwdonpoor rates 
or taxes) : ins much that no such thing as a common beggar 
was permitted, or known, to be among them, of that society. 

An example of the sufferings of these unoffending people 
years before William Penn opened a refuge for them in the 
coir ly '^f Pennsylvania is furnished by the following letter 
of King Charles II to the authorities of New England : 

Trusty and W jl] jeloved. Wee greet you well, — 
Having been informed that severall of our Subjects amongst 
you, Called Quakers, have been & are Imprisoned by you, 
wiereof some have been Executed, & others (as hath been 
represented to us) are in danger to undergoe the Like ; Wee 
have thought fitt to signify our Pleasure in that behalf for the 
future. And do hereby Require, that if there be any of those 
People called Quakers amongst you, now allready Condemned 
to suffer Death, or other Corporall Punishments, or that are 
Irnprisoned, & obnoxious to the like Condemnation, you for- 
beare to Proceed any farther therein. But that you forthwith 
send the said Persons, whether Condemned or Imprisoned, 
over into this our Kingdom of England, together with ther 
respective Crimes or offenses laid to ther Charge, to the end 
such course may be taken with them here, as shalbe agreeable 
to our Lawes & theire Demerrits. And for soe doing, these 
our Letters shalbe your warrent & sufficient Discharge. 

Given at our Court at White Hall the 9th day of September 
1 66 1 in the 13 yeare of our Reigne 



The English Colonies 6/ 

No other colony in the seventeenth century was so 21. Peopling 
widely, wisely, or honestly advertised as the great domain 1^1^1683"^' 
(almost as large as England itself) granted to William Penn [64j 
by the very liberal terms of Charles II's Charter, March 4, 
1 68 1 . Scarcely a month after the grant, Penn wrote a pro- 
spectus for his new colony, under the title '' Some Account 
of the Province of Pennsilvania," which appeared immedi- 
ately on the continent in Dutch and German translations. 
When Penn sailed himself for America, in August, 1682, 
over 600,000 acres of his land had been sold. 



SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PROVINCE OF PENNSILVANIA 
IN AMERICA; LATELY GRANTED UNDER THE GREAT 
SEAL OF ENGLAND TO WILLIAM PENN, ETC. TOGETHER 
WITH PRIVILEDGES AND POWERS NECESSARY TO THE 
WELL-GOVERNING THEREOF. MADE PUBLICK FOR THE 
INFORMATION OF SUCH AS ARE OR MAY BE DISPOSED 
TO TRANSPORT THEMSELVES OR SERVANTS INTO 
THOSE PARTS. LONDON: PRINTED AND SOLD BY BEN- 
JAMIN CLARK, BOOKSELLER, IN GEORGE-YARD, LOM- 
BARD-STREET, 1681 

Since (by the good providence of God) a Country in America 
is fallen to my lot, I thought it not less my Duty than my honest 
Interest to give some publick notice of it to the World, that 
those of our own or other Nations, that are inclined to trans- 
port themselves or Families beyond the Seas, may find another 
Country added to their choice, that if they shall happen to like 
the Place, Conditions, and Constitutions (so far as the present 
Infancy of things will allow us any prospect), they may, if they 
please, fix with me in the Province hereafter describ'd. . . . 

Next let us see. What is fit for the Journey and Place, when 
there, and also what may be the Charge of the Voyage, and 
what is to be expected and done there at first. That such as 
incline to go, may not be to seek here, or brought under any 
disappointments there. The goods fit to take with them for 



68 The Establishment of the English 

use, or sell for profit, are all sorts of Apparel and Utensils for 
Husbandry and Building and Household Stuff. And because 
I know how much People are apt to fancy things beyond what 
they are, and that Immaginations are great flatterers of the 
minds of Men ; To the end that none may delude themselves 
with an expectation of an Immediate Amendment of their Con- 
ditions, so soon as it shall please God they arrive there : I 
would have them understand. That they must look for a Winter 
before a Summer comes ; and they must be willing to be two 
or three years without some of the conveniences they enjoy 
at home : And yet I must needs say that America is another 
thing than it was at the first Plantation of Virginia and New- 
England: For there is better Accommodation, and English Pro- 
visions are to be had at easier rates : However, I am inclin'd 
to set down particulars, as near as those inform me, that know 
the place, and have been Planters both in that and in the 
Neighbouring Colonys. 

I St. The passage will come for Masters and Mistresses at 
most to 6 Pounds a Head, for Servants five Pounds a Head, 
and for Children under Seven years of Age fifty Shillings, except 
they suck, then nothing. 

Next being by the mercy of God arrived safely in September 
or October, two Men may clear as much Ground by Spring 
(when they set the Corn in that Country) as will bring in that 
time twelve month 40 Barrels, which amounts to two Hundred 
Bushels. ... So that the first year they must buy Corn, which 
is usually very plentiful. They may so soon as they are come, 
buy Cows, more or less, as they want, or are able, which are to 
be had at easy rates. For Swine, they are plentiful and cheap ; 
these will quickly increase to a stock. So that after the first 
year . . . they may do very well, till their own Stocks are suffi- 
cient to supply them and their Families, which will quickly be 
and to spare, if they follow the English Husbandry, as they do 
in New-England and New- York. . . . 

To conclude, I desire all my dear Country-Folks, who may 
be inclin'd to go into those Parts, to consider seriously the 
premises, as well the present inconveniences, as future ease 



The English Colonies 69 

and Plenty, so that none may move rashly or from a fickle, but 
solid mind, having above all things, an Eye to the Providence 
of God, in the disposal of themselves. . . . 

William Penn 

Postscript : 

Whoever are desirous to be concern'd with me in this Prov- 
ince, they may be treated with and further Satisfied, at Philip 
Fords in Bow Lane in Cheapside, and at Thomas Rudyards or 
Benjamin Clarks in George Yard in Lumbard-street. 

One of the most enthusiastic advertisers of Penn's colony 
was a very cultivated German lawyer, Francis Daniel Pas- 
torius, who emigrated to Philadelphia in 1683 as the agent 
of a group of Frankfort pietists who had purchased 1 5 ,000 
acres of land in the new province. Pastorius lived in Ger- 
mantow^n, as its chief citizen, till his death in 17 19 or 
1720. In his '' Circumstantial Geographical Description 
of Pennsylvania," published at Frankfort and Leipzig in 
1700, after describing the discovery of the province and 
the grant of the charter to Penn, Pastorius continues : 

On November i, 1682, William Penn arrived in this province 
with twenty ships, having spent six weeks upon the voyage. 
Even while they were yet far from the land there was wafted 
to them as delightful a fragrance as if it came from a freshly 
blossoming garden. He found on his arrival no other Christian 
people save those alone who on the discovery of the province 
had been put there.^ Part of them dwelt in New-Castle, and 
part upon separate plantations. Penn was received as their 
ruler by these people with especial tokens of affection, and 
they most willingly discharged their obligation of submission 

1 This is an error. There were English, Dutch, French, Swedes, and 
Indians in the province when Penn arrived. They had come especially 
from the Dutch and Swedish settlements on the Delaware. 



70 TJie Establishme^it of the English 

to him.^ All that he required of them in return was : A tem- 
perate life and neighborly love. On the other hand, he promised 
to protect them in both spiritual and temporal matters. 

Firstly, no one shall be disturbed on account of his belief, 
but freedom of conscience shall be granted to all inhabitants of 
the province, so that every nation may build and conduct churches 
and schools according to their desires. 

2. Sunday shall be consecrated to the public v^orship of God. 
The teaching of God shall be so zealously carried on that its 
purity can be recognized in each listener from the fruits which 
arise from it. 

3. For the more convenient bringing up of the youth, the 
solitary farmers living in the province shall all remove to the 
market-towns, so that the neighbors may help one another in a 
Chrisdike manner and praise God together, and that they may 
accustom their children also to do the same. 

4. The sessions of the court shall be held publicly, at ap- 
pointed times, so that everyone may attend them. 

5. Justices of the peace shall be appointed in the rising cities 
and market-towns, to ensure the observance of the laws. 

6. Cursing, blasphemy, misuse of the name of God, quarrel- 
ling, cheating, drunkenness, shall be punished with the pillory. 

7. All workmen shall be content with their stipulated wages. 

8. Each child, that is twelve years of age, shall be put to 
some handicraft or other honorable trade. 

The Governor William Penn laid out the city of Philadelphia 
between the two streams de la Ware [Delaware] and Scolkis 
[Schuylkill] and gave it this name, as if its inhabitants should 
lead their lives there in pure and simple brotherly love. . . . 

My company consisted of many sorts of people. There was 
a doctor of medicine, with his wife and eight children, a French 
captain, a Low Dutch cake-baker, an apothecary, a glass-blower, 
a mason, a smith, a wheelwright, a cabinet-maker, a cooper, a hat- 
maker, a cobbler, a tailor, a gardener, farmers, seamstresses, etc., 

hah ,©5fJanding from the ship Welcome at New Castle, Penn received the 
s^tofeoA^^.oftjhis feudal lordship of the province — turf, twig, and water, 
signifying dooiinion over the soil, the products, and the ways of travel 
in the land. 



The English Colojtics yi 

in all about eighty persons besides the crew. They were not only 
different in respect to age . . . and in respect to their occupations, 
but were also of such different religions and behaviors that I might 
not unfittingly compare the ship that bore them hither with Noah's 
Ark, but that there were more unclean than clean [rational] ani- 
mals to be found therein. In my household I have those who 
hold to the Roman, to the Lutheran, to the Calvinistic, to the 
Anabaptist, to the Anglican church, and only one Quaker. . . . 

On the 2oth of August we arrived at evening, praise God, 
safely at Philadelphia, where I on the following day delivered 
to William Penn the letters that I had, and was received by him 
with amiable friendliness. Of that very worthy man and famous 
ruler I might properly write many things ; but my pen (though 
it is from an eagle, which a so-called savage lately brought to 
my house) is much too weak to express the high virtues of this 
Christian — for such he is indeed. He often invites me to his 
table, and has me walk and ride in his always edifying company. 
. . . He heartily loves the Germans, and once said openly in 
my presence to his councillors and those who were about him, 
I love the Germans and desire that you also should love them. . . . 

On October 24, 1685 [1683] I, Francis Daniel Pastorius, with 
the good will of the governor, laid out another new city, of the 
name of Germanton, or Germanopolis, at a distance of two hours' 
walk from Philadelphia, where there are a good black fertile soil 
and many fresh wholesome springs of water, many oak, walnut, 
and chestnut trees, and also good pastorage for cattle. The first 
settlement consisted of only twelve families of forty-one persons, 
the greater part High German mechanics and weavers, because 
I had ascertained that linen cloth would be indispensable. 

I made the main street of this city sixty feet wide, and the side 
streets forty : the space or ground-plot for each house and garden 
was as much as three acres of land, but for my own dwelling twice 
as much. Before this I had also built a little house in Philadel- 
phia, thirty feet long and fifteen wide. Because of the scarcity of 
glass the windows were of oiled paper. Over the house-door I 
had written : 

Pan<a Domns, sed arnica Bonis ^ procul esfe prof afii 

[A small house but friendly to the good : depart ye profane] 



J 2 The Establishment of the English 

Whereat our Governor, when he visited me, burst into laughter, 
and encouraged me to keep on building. 

I have also acquired for my High-German Company fifteen 
thousand acres of land in one piece, on condition that, within 
a year, they shall actually place thirty households thereon. . . . 

It would therefore be a very good thing if the European 
associates should at once send more persons over here for the 
common advantage of the Company : for only the day before 
yesterday the governor said to me that the zeal of his High- 
Germans in building pleased him very much, and that he preferred 
them to the English, and would grant them special privileges. 

The Colonies in the Eighteenth Century 

22. The '' The design in the settlement of colonies," remarked 

gation Act' ^^^ French political philosopher, Montesquieu, ''was the 

i<56o extension of commerce and not the foundation of a new 

y^^^ empire." The British Navigation Acts furnish ample proof 

of the truth of this statement. Rivalry with the Dutch for 

the colonial carrying trade of the world led the English 

Parliament, about the middle of the seventeenth century, 

to begin a series of enactments for the strict regulation 

and control of English commerce, vdth the purpose of 

securing all the colonial trade for the mother country. 

One of the most important of these acts was passed in 

the year of the Restoration of the Stuarts (1660), and is 

known as the First Navigation Act. 

AN ACT FOR THE ENCOURAGEING AND INCREASING 
OF SHIPPING AND NAVIGATION 

[I] For the increase of Shiping and incouragement of the 
Navigation of this Nation, wherin under the good providence 
and protection of God the Wealth Safety and Strength of this 
Kingdome is soe much concerned Bee it Enacted by the 
Kings most Excellent Majesty and by the Lords and Commons 



The English Colonies 73 

in this present Parliament assembled and the Authoritie therof. 
That from and after the first day of December One thousand 
six hundred and Sixty and from thence forward noe Goods or 
Commodities whatsoever shall be Imported into or Exported 
out of any Lands Islelands Plantations or Territories to his 
Majesty belonging or in his possession or which may hereafter 
belong unto or be in the possession of his Majesty His Heires 
and Successors in Asia Africa or America in any other Ship or 
Ships Vessell or Vessells whatsoever but in such Ships or Ves- 
sells as doe truly and without fraud belong onely to the people 
of England or Ireland Dominion of Wales or Towne of Ber- 
wicke upon Tweede, or are of the built of, and belonging to any 
of the said Lands Islands Plantations or Territories as the Pro- 
prietors and right owners therof and wherof the Master and 
three fourths of the Marriners at least are English under the 
penalty of the Forfeiture and Losse of all the Goods and Com- 
modityes ... as of alsoe the Ship or Vessell with all its Guns 
Furniture Tackle Ammunition and Apparell. . . . 

[IV] And it is further Enacted . . . that noe Goods or Com- 
modityes that are of forraigne growth production or manufac- 
ture and which are brought into England Ireland Wales ... in 
English built Shipping . . . and navigated by English Mariners 
as abovesaid shall be shipped or brought from any other place 
or Places, Country or Countries but onely from those of their 
said Growth Production or Manufacture, or from those ports 
where the said Goods and Commodityes can onely or are or 
usually have beene first shiped for transportation. . . . Under 
the penalty of the forfeiture of all such of the aforesaid Goods 
as shall be Imported from any other place or Country ... as 
alsoe of the Ship in which they were imported with all her Guns 
Furniture Ammunition Tackle and Apparel. . . . 

[VIII] And it is further Enacted . . . That noe Goods or 
Commodityes of the Growth Production or Manufacture of 
Muscovy or of any of the Countryes Dominions or Territories 
to the Great Duke or Emperor of Muscovia or Russia belong- 
ing. As alsoe that noe sorts of Masts Timber or boards noe 
forraigne Salt Pitch Tar Rozin Hempe or Flax Raizins Figs 
Prunes Olive Oyles noe Come or Graine Sugar Pot-ashes Wines 



74 'I^he Establishment of the English 

Vinegar or Spirits called Aqua-vite or Brandy Wine shall from 
and after [April i, 1661] . . . be imported into England ... in 
any Ship or Ships Vessel or Vessells whatsoever but in such as 
doe truly and without fraude belong to the people therof ... as 
the true Owners and proprietors therof, and wherof the Master 
and Three Fourths of the Mariners at least are English. . . . 

[XVIII] And it is further Enacted . . . That from and after 
[April I, 1661] . . . noe Sugars Tobaccho Cotton Wool Indicoes 
Ginger Fustick or other dyeing wood of the Growth Production 
or Manufacture of any English Plantations in America Asia or 
Africa shall be shiped carried conveyed or transported from any 
of the said English Plantations to any Land Island Territory 
Dominion Port or place whatsoever other than to such English 
Plantations as doe belong to His Majesty ... or to the King- 
dome of England or Ireland or Principallity of Wales or Towne 
of Berwick upon Tweede there to be laid on shore under the 
penalty of the Forfeiture of the said Goods or the full value 
thereof, as alsoe of the Ship with all her Guns Tackle Apparel 
Ammunition and Furniture. . . . 

[XIX] And be it further Enacted . . . That for every Ship 
or Vessell which from and after [December 25, 1660] . . . shall 
set saile out of England . , . for any English Plantation in 
America Asia Africa sufficient bond shall be given ... to the 
chiefe officers of the Custome house of such Port or place from 
whence the said ship set saile to the value of one thousand 
pounds if the Ship shall be of lesse burthen then one hundred 
Tuns, and of the summe of two thousand pounds if the Ship 
shal be of greater burthen. That in case the said Ship or Ves- 
sell shall loade any of the said Commodityes at any of the said 
English Plantations, that the same Commodityes shall be by 
the said Ship brought to some port of England . . . and shall 
there unload and put on shore the same, the danger of the Seas 
onely excepted. . . . 

23. Observa- Peter Kalm, Professor in the University of Abo, in 

forefgn iTst Swedish Finland, and the Reverend Andrew Burnaby, 

tors, 1748- Archdeacon of Leicester, England, made tours through 

f^2\ the '' middle settlements " in North America in the years 



The English Colonies 75 

1 748- 1 749 and 1 759-1 760 respectively. The Swedish 
professor was particularly interested in the natural history 
of America, but turned aside often to make " several curi- 
ous and important remarks on various subjects." Reaching 
New York, he writes : 

The king appoints the governor according to his royal pleas- 
ure, but the inhabitants of the province make up his excellency's 
salary. Therefore a man entrusted with this place has greater 
or lesser revenues, according as he knows how to gain the con- 
fidence of the inhabitants. There are examples of governors in 
this, and other provinces of North America, who by their dis- 
sensions with the inhabitants of their respective governments, 
have lost their whole salary, his Majesty having no power to 
make them pay it. . . . 

Each English Colony in No^ih Ai7ierica is independent of the 
other, and each has its proper [own] laws and coin, and may be 
looked upon in several lights as a state by itself. From hence 
it happens, that in time of war, things go on very slowly and 
irregularly here : for not only the sense of one province is some- 
times directly opposite to that of another ; but frequently the 
views of the governor and those of the assembly of the same 
province are quite different : so that it is easy to see that, while 
the people are quarrelling about the best and cheapest manner 
of carrying on the war, an enemy has it in his power to take 
one place after another. It has commonly happened that whilst 
some provinces have been suffering from their enemies, the 
neighboring ones were quiet and inactive, and as if it did not 
in the least concern them. They have frequently taken up two 
or three years in considering whether they should give assistance 
to an oppressed sister colony, and sometimes they have ex- 
pressly declared themselves against it. There are instances of 
provinces who were not only neuter [neutral] in these circum- 
stances, but who even carried on a great trade with the power 
which at that very time was attacking and laying waste some 
other provinces. 

The Erench in Ca7iada, who are but an inconsiderable body, 
in comparison with the Etiglish in America, have by this position 



76 TJie Establishment of the English 

of affairs been able to obtain great Advantages in times of war ; 
for if we judge from the number and power of the English, it 
would seem very easy for them to get the better of the French 
in America. It is however of great advantage to the crown of 
England, that the No7'th American colonies are near a country, 
under the government of the French, like Canada. There is 
reason to believe that the king was never earnest in his attempts 
to expel the Frefich from their possessions there ; though it 
might have been done with little difficulty. For the E?iglish 
colonies in this part of the world have encreased so much in 
their number of inhabitants, and in their riches, that they almost 
vie with Old Englajid. Now in order to keep up the authority 
and trade of their mother country, and to answer several other 
purposes, they are forbid to establish new manufactures which 
would turn to the disadvantage of the British commerce : they 
are not allowed to dig for any gold or silver, unless they send 
them to England immediately : they have not the liberty of trad- 
ing to any parts that do not belong to the British dominions, ex- 
cepting some settled places, and foreign traders are not allowed 
to send their ships to them. These and some other restrictions 
occasion the inhabitants of the English colonies to grow less 
tender for their mother country. This coldness is kept up by the 
many foreigners such as Germa7is, Dutch, and French settled 
here, and living among the Efiglish, who commonly have no 
particular attachment to Old Engl a7id. . . . 

I have been told by Englis/wten, and not only by such as 
were born in America, but even by such as came from Europe, 
that the English colonies in Noi'th America, in the space of 
thirty or fifty years, would be able to form a state by themselves,^ 
entirely independent on Old E?igland. But as the whole country 
which lies along the sea-shore is unguarded, and on the land side 
is harrassed by the French, in times of war these dangerous 
neighbors are sufficient to prevent the connection of the colo- 
nies with their mother country from being quite broken off. 
The Eiiglish government has therefore sufficient reason to 

1 It was actually less than thirty years from the date of Kalm's writing 
{1748) that the colonies, by throwing off the allegiance to England, 
formed " a state by themselves." 



The English Colonies yj 

consider the Fre7ich in North A?nerica as the best means of 
keeping the colonies in their due submission. 

The Reverend Archdeacon, after rather caustic criti- 
cisms of the manners and institutions of the colonists, in 
his journey from Virginia to Massachusetts Bay, ends his 
story with the following pessimistic estimate of the colonies 
as a whole : 

America is formed for happiness but not for empire : in a 
course of 1200 miles I did not see a single object that solicited 
charity, but I saw insuperable causes of weakness, which will 
necessarily prevent its being a potent state. 

Our colonies may be distinguished into the southern and 
northern, separated from each other by the Susquehannah and 
that imaginary line which divides Maryland from Pensylvania. 

The southern colonies have so many inherent causes of 
weakness that they can never possess any real strength. The 
climate operates very powerfully upon them, and renders them 
indolent, inactive, and unenterprising ; this is visible in every 
line of their character. I myself have been a spectator, and it 
is not an uncommon sight of a man in the vigour of life, lying 
upon a couch, and a female slave standing over him, wafting 
off the flies, and fanning him, while he took his repose. 

The southern colonies (Maryland, which is the smallest and 
most inconsiderable, alone excepted) will never be thickly seated 
[populated] ; for as they are not confined within determinate 
limits, but extend to the westward indefinitely ; men sooner 
than apply themselves to laborious occupations, occupations 
militating with their dispositions, and generally considered too 
as the inheritance and badge of slavery, will gradually retire 
westward, and settle upon fresh lands, which are said also to 
be more fertile ; where by the servitude of a negro or two, they 
may enjoy all the satisfaction of an easy and indolent independ- 
ency ; hence the lands upon the coast will of course remain thin 
of inhabitants. 

The mode of cultivation by slavery is another insurmountable 
cause of weakness. The number of negroes in the southern 



yS The Establishment of the English 

colonies is upon the whole nearly equal, if not superior, to that 
of the white men : and they propagate and increase even faster. 
Their condition is truly pitiable ; their labour excessively hard, 
their diet poor and scanty, their treatment cruel and oppressive ; 
they cannot therefore but be a subject of terror to those who 
so inhumanly tyrannize over them. 

The Indians near the frontiers are a still further formidable 
cause of subjection. The southern Indians are numerous, and 
are governed by a sounder policy than formerly : experience 
has taught them wisdom. They never make war with the colo- 
nists without carrying terror and devastation along with them. 
They sometimes break up intire counties together. Such is the 
state of the southern colonies. 

The northern colonies are of stronger stamina, but they have 
other difficulties and disadvantages to struggle with, not less 
arduous, or more easy to be surmounted than what have been 
already mentioned. Their limits being defined, they will un- 
doubtedly become exceedingly populous : . . . but the northern 
colonies have still more positive and real disadvantages to con- 
tend with. They are composed of people of different nations, 
different manners, different religions, and different languages. 
They have a mutual jealousy of each other, fomented by con- 
siderations of interest, power, and ascendency. Religious zeal 
too, like a smothered fire, is secretly burning in the hearts of the 
different sectaries that inhabit them, and were it not restrained 
by laws and superior authority, would soon burst out into a flame 
of universal persecution. Even the peaceable Quakers struggle 
hard for preeminence, and evince in a very striking manner 
that the passions of mankind are much stronger than any prin- 
ciples of religion. 

The colonies therefore separately considered, are internally 
weak : but it may be supposed that by an union or coalition 
they would become strong and formidable : but an union seems 
almost impossible : one founded in dominion or power is morally 
so : for, were not England to interfere, the colonies themselves 
so well understand the policy of preserving a balance that I think 
they would not be idle spectators, were any one of them to en- 
deavor to subjugate its next neighbour. Indeed, it appears to me 



The Eitglish Colonies 79 

a very doubtful point, even supposing all the colonies in America 
to be united under one head, whether it would be possible to 
keep in due order and government so wide and extended an 
empire ; the difficulties of communication, of intercourse, of 
correspondence, and all other circumstances considered. 

A voluntary association or coalition, at least a permanent one, 
is almost as difficult to be supposed ; for fire and water are not 
more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. 
Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they pos- 
sess in regard to each other. The inhabitants of Pennsylvania 
and New York have an inexhaustible source of animosity in 
their jealousy for the trade of the Jerseys. Massachusetts Bay 
and Rhode Island are not less interested in that of Connecticut. 
The West Indies are a common subject of emulation to them 
all. Even the limits and boundaries of each colony are a con- 
stant source of litigation. In short, such is the difference of 
character, of manners, of religion, of interest of the different 
colonies, that I think, if I am not wholly ignorant of the human 
mind, were they left to themselves, there would soon be a civil 
war from one end of the continent to the other; while the Indians 
and negroes would, with better reason, impatiently watch the 
opportunity of exterminating them all together. 

After all, however, supposing what I firmly believe will never 
take place, a permanent union or alliance of all the colonies, yet 
it could not be effectual . . . for such is the extent of the coast 
settled by the American colonies, that it can never be defended 
but by a maritime power. America must first be mistress of 
the sea, before she can be independent or mistress of herself. 
Suppose the colonies ever so populous ; suppose them capable 
of maintaining 100,000 men constantly in arms (a supposition 
in the highest degree extravagant), yet a half a dozen frigates 
would with ease ravage and lay waste the whole country from 
end to end, without a possibility of their being able to prevent 
it : the country is so intersected by rivers, rivers of such mag- 
nitude as to render it impossible to build bridges over them, 
that all communication is in a manner cut off. An army under 
such circumstances could never act to any purpose or effect : its 
operations would be totally frustrated. 



8o The Establishment of the English 

Further, a great part of the opulence and power of America 
depends upon her fisheries, and her commerce with the West 
Indies : she cannot subsist without them ; but these would be 
intirely at the mercy of that power, which might have the sov- 
ereignty of the seas. I conclude therefore that England, so long 
as she maintains her superiority in that respect, will also possess 
a superiority in America: but the moment she loses the em- 
pire of the one, she will be deprived of the sovereignty of the 
other : for were that empire to be held by France, Holland, or 
any other power, America will, in all probability be annexed to it. 

24. Harvard An anonymous writer, one of the members of the first 
the early" Massachusetts settlement, gives the foUov^ing quaint ac- 
days, 1642, count of Harvard College in 1642, only six years after its 
foundation. The description formed one half of a tract 



[73] 



called " New England's First F>uits," published in London 
in 1643. 

After God had carried us safe to New-England, and wee 
had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our liveli-hood, 
rear'd convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civill 
government : One of the next things we longed for, and looked 
after was to advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity ; 
dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when 
our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust And as wee were 
thinking and consulting how to effect this great work ; it pleased 
God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly Gentle- 
man and a lover of Learning, there living amongst us) to give 
the one halfe of his Estate (it being in all about 1700 1.) towards 
the erecting of a Colledge, and all his Library : after him an- 
other gave 300 1. Others after them cast in more, and the pub- 
lique hand of the State added the rest: the Colledge was, by 
common consent, appointed to be at Camb7idge (a place very 
pleasant and accommodate) and is called (according to the name 
of the first founder) Harvard Colledge. 

The Edifice is very faire and comely within and without, 
having in it a spacious Hall ; (where they daily meet at Common 
Lectures) Exercises [Commons, Lectures, and Exercises], and 



The Enzlish Colonies 8 1 



a large Library with some Bookes to it, the gifts of divers 
of our friends, their Chambers and studies also, fitted for and 
possessed by the Students, and all other roomes of Office neces- 
sary and convenient, with all needfull Offices thereto belonging : 
And by the side of the Co Hedge a faire Gra?7iifiar Schoole, for 
the training up of young Schollars, and fitting of them for Aca- 
demicall Learning, that still as they are judged ripe, they may 
be received into the Colledge of this Schoole. . . . 

Over the Colledge is master Dunster placed, as President 
[1640-165 4], a learned, conscionable [conscientious] and indus- 
trious man, who hath so trained up his Pupills in the tongues 
and Arts, and so seasoned them with the principles of Divinity 
and Christianity, that we have to our great comforts (and in truth) 
beyond our hopes, beheld their progresse in Learning and godli- 
nesse also. . . . The latter hath been manifested in sundry of 
them, by the savoury breathings of their spirits in their godly 
conversation. Insomuch that we are confident, if these early 
blossomes may be cherished and warmed with the influence of 
the friends of Learning, and lovers of this pious worke, they will 
by the help of God, come to happy maturity in a short time. 

Over the Colledge are twelve Overseers chosen by the Generall 
Court, six of them are of the Magistrates, the other six of the 
Ministers. . . . 

Rules and Precepts that are observed in the Colledge 

1. When any Schollar is able to understand Tully [Cicero], 
or such like classicall Latine Auther extempore, and make and 
speak true Latine in Verse and Prose, suo ut aiunt Marte [with- 
out help from others] ; and decline perfectly the Paradigmes of 
Notmes and Verbes in the Greek tongue : Let him then and not 
before be capable of admission into the Colledge. 

2. Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly 
pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, 
to know God a7id Jesus Christ tvhich is eternal life, Joh. 17. 3. 
and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation 
of all sound knowledge and Learning. 

5 . That they studiously redeeme the time ; observe the gen- 
erall houres appointed for all the Students, and the speciall houres 
for their owne Classis \ and then diligently attend the Lectures, 



82 The Establishment of the English 

without any disturbance by word or gesture. And if in anything 
they doubt, they shall enquire, as of their fellowes, so, (in case 
of Non satisfaction) modestly of their Tutors. 

6. None shall under any pretence whatsoever, frequent the 
company and society of such men as lead an unfit, and dissolute 
life. Nor shall any without his Tutors leave, or (in his absence) 
the call of Parents or Guardians, goe abroad to other Townes. 

8. If any Schollar shall be found to transgresse any of the 
Lawes of God, or the Schoole, after twice Admonition, he shall 
be lyable, if not adultus, to correction, if adultus, his name 
shall be given up to the Overseers of the Colledge, that he may 
bee admonished at the publick monthly Act. 

The College seems to have declined somewhat in its first 
half century from the lofty ideals of its founders, if vi^e may 
accept as an authentic picture of college life the short 
description found in the journal of Jasper Danckaerts, a 
Dutch visitor to Cambridge, in the year i68o. 

9th [of July 1680] Tuesday. We started out to go to Cam- 
bridge, lying to the north east of Boston, in order to see their 
college and printing office. We left about six o'clock in the 
morning, and were set across the river at Charlestown. . . . We 
reached Cambridge about eight o'clock. It is not a large village, 
and the houses stand very much apart. The college building is 
the most conspicuous among them.^ We went to it, expecting 
to see something curious, as it is the only Colledge, or would-be 
academy of the Protestants in all America, but we found our- 
selves mistaken. In approaching the house we neither heard nor 

1 This was New College, finished in 1682 after much delay owing to 
the "Indian warre " (of King Philip). The original Harvard Hall, the 
" Edifice very faire and comely within and without," had begun to show 
signs of dilapidation very early. In 1647 President Dunster wrote to 
the Commissioners of New England : " from the first evil contrivall of 
the Colledge building there now ensues yearly decayes of the rooff, walls 
and foundations, which the study rents [tuition fees] will not carry forth 
to repair." The New College contained accommodations for forty 
students. It was burned to the ground in 1764. 



The English Colonies 83 

saw anything mentionable ; but going to the other side of the 
building, we heard noise enough in an upper room, to lead my 
comrade to suppose they were engaged in disputation. We 
entered and went up stairs, when a person met us and requested 
us to walk in, which we did. We found there, eight or ten young 
fellows, sitting around, smoking tobacco, with the smoke of which 
the room was so full, that you could hardly see : and the whole 
house smelt so strong of it, that when I was going up stairs, I 
said, this is certainly a tavern. We excused ourselves, that we 
could speak English only a little, but understood Dutch or French, 
which they did not. However, we spoke as well as we could. 
We inquired how many professors there were, and they replied 
not one, that there was no money to support one. We asked 
how many students there were. They said at first, thirty, then 
came down to twenty ; I afterwards understood there are prob- 
ably not ten. They could hardly speak a word of Latin, so that 
my comrade could not converse with them. They took us to 
the library where there was nothing particular. We looked over 
it a little. They presented us with a glass of wine. This is all 
we ascertained there. The minister of the place goes there 
morning and evening to make prayer, and has charge over them. 
The students have tutors or masters. 

Josiah Quincy in his '' History of Harvard University" 
transcribes from the records of the Corporation the follow- 
ing account of the reception of the newly elected Governor 
Shirley of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. '' The inti- 
mate union which subsisted between Harvard College and 
the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the Province," says 
Quincy, '' unavoidably connected the interests of the 
seminary with political events." 

The Governor came up to Cambridge with an escort of forty 
men, including officers, accompanied by the Council, a great 
many other gentlemen, and a considerable number who came 
over the ferry, by way of Charlestown. He was met a mile off, 
by the gentlemen of Cambridge, the Tutors, the Professors, 



84 TJie Establishment of the English 

Masters, and two of the Bachelors/ Both the Meetinghouse 
bell and the College bell were rung. He was received at the 
door of the College, exactly at eleven o'clock, by the President 
and Corporation, and escorted to the Library, where, having 
waited twenty minutes, the bell was tolled, and all moved down 
to the Hall : the Corporation first, the Governor and Lieutenant- 
Governor next, and then the other gentlemen. When all were 
seated, the President ordered the orator (Mr. Winslow, a junior 
Bachelor) to begin : and, when he had finished, the Governor 
rose (all rising with him) and made a very fine Latin speech, 
promising the College all his care for the promoting of learning 
and religion. All proceeded afterwards to the Library again, 
where the President asked the Governor if he would like to see 
a philosophical experiment in the Professor's chamber ; on which 
all moved there directly, and saw three or four experiments, 
which took up almost all the time till dinner ; the Governor going 
to Mr. Flynt's chamber again until it was ready. The tables 
were laid two at each end of the hall, and one across by the 
chimneys. The Governor, Council, and Corporation sat at the 
cross table ; the Governor facing the door, the rest in their order. 
. . . The whole number present amounted to one hundred and 
twenty ! The Governor sat about an hour, and then, after the 
I Gist Psalm was sung, he, with the rest of the gentlemen, went 
off, about five o'clock with his guard. 

1 Lest this should give the impression of a large college faculty it 
might be well to quote the remark of the celebrated evangelist George 
Whitefield, who visited Harvard in 1740: "The chief College in New 
England has one President, four Tutors, and about a hundred students. 
It is scarce as big as one of our least Colleges in Oxford and . . . not 
far superior to our Universities in piety and true godliness. Tutors 
neglect to pray with and examine the hearts of their pupils. Discipline 
is at too low an ebb. Bad books are become fashionable amongst them." 
— Whitefield, Seventh Journal, p. 28. 



CHAPTER III 
THE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE FOR NORTH AMERICA 

The Rise of New France 

In the stirring annals of French exploration in the new 25. La 
world, Rene Robert Cavelier de la Salle's journey of a fge dowT^" 
thousand miles from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico, ^^^ Missis- 

r 1 ' , sippi, Jan- 

openmg the mam current of the great river system that uary to 
drains our midland states, holds the first place. Among La '^^"^' ^^^ 
Salle's companions was the Recollect (Franciscan) Friar, ^ ^ 
Father Zenobius Membre, who reported the success of La 
Salle's expedition in a letter directed to his cousin and 
superior. Father Chretien Le Clercq of Gaspe, and dated 
"From the Mississippi, June 3, 1682." Nine years later Le 
Clercq published at Paris an ambitious work entitled '' The 
First Establishment of the Faith in New France," in which 
he included Father Zenobius' report of La Salle's voyage. 

Monsieur de la Salle, having arrived safely at the Miamis on 
the 3d of November [1681], bent himself, with his ordinary 
activity and great breadth of mind, to prepare all things neces- 
sary for his departure. He selected twenty-three Frenchmen 
and eighteen Indians inured to war, some Mahingans [Mohicans] 
or Loups, some Abenaquis. They desired to take along ten of 
their women to cook for them, as their custom is, while they 
were fishing or hunting. These women took with them three 
children, so that the whole party consisted of but fifty-four 
persons, including the Sieur de Tonty and the Sieur Dautray, 
son of the late Sieur Bourdon, procurator-general of Quebec. 
On the 2 1 St of December I embarked with the Sieur de Tonty 

85 



86 The Establishment of the E^iglish 

and part of our people on Lake Dauphin [Michigan] to go 
toward the divine river called by the Indians Checagon, in order 
to make the necessary arrangements for our voyage. The Sieur 
de la Salle joined us there with the rest of his troop, on the 
4th of January, 1682, and found that the Sieur de Tonty had 
made sleds to put all the party on and carry them over the 
Checagon, which was frozen ; for though the winter in these 
parts lasts only two months, it is notwithstanding very severe. 
There is a portage to be made to enter the river of the Illinois, 
which we found also frozen: we made it on the 27th of the 
same month, dragging our canoes, our baggage and provisions 
about eighty leagues' distance on the river Seignelay [Illinois], 
which runs down into the river Colbert ^ ; we traversed the great 
village of the Illinois without finding anyone there, the Indians 
having gone to winter thirty leagues lower down on Lake 
Pimiteoui [Peoria], where Fort Crevecoeur stands. We found 
it in good condition.^ The Sieur de la Salle left his orders here, 
and as from this spot navigation is open at all seasons and free 
from ice, we embarked in our canoes, and on the 6th of Feb- 
ruary reached the mouth of the river Seignelay, situated at 
latitude 38°. The ice which was floating down on the river 
Colbert at this place kept us there till the thirteenth of the 
same month, when we set out and six leagues lower down we 
found the river of the Ozages [the Emissitoura or Missouri] 
coming from the west. It is full as large as the river Colbert, 
into which it empties, and which is so disturbed by it that from 
the mouth of this river the water is hardly drinkable. The 
Indians assured us that this river is formed by many others, 
and that they ascend it for ten or twelve days to a mountain 
where they have their source ; and that beyond this mountain is 
the sea, where great ships are seen. . . . 

1 The Mississippi was named the Colbert by La wSalle, says Tonty, 
on the occasion of his passage from the Illinois (Seignelay) into the 
main stream. 

^ It was built by La Salle in 1680, and left as an outpost when he 
was obliged to return to Fort Frontenac on account of the failure of 
supplies, " all Canada," as his companion Father Membre says, " seem- 
ing in league against his undertaking." 



The StriLggle ivith France for North America 87 

At last ... we arrived, on the 6th of April, at a point where 
the river divides into three channels. The Sieur de la Salle 
divided his party the next day into three bands to go and explore 
them. He took the western, the Sieur Dautray the southern, 
the Sieur Tonty, whom I accompanied, the middle one. These 
three channels are beautiful and deep. The water is brackish ; 
after two leagues it became perfectly salt, and advancing on, 
we discovered the open sea, so that on the 9th of April, with 
all possible solemnity, we performed the ceremony of planting 
the cross and raising the arms of France. After we had chanted 
the hymn of the church, Vexilla Regis} and the Te Deum^ the 
Sieur de la Salle, in the name of his majesty, took possession 
of that river, of all rivers that enter it, and of all countries 
watered by them. An authentic act was drawn up, signed by 
all of us there, and, to the sound of a volley from all our mus- 
kets, a leaden plate, on which were engraved the arms of France 
and the names of those who had just made the discovery, was 
deposited in the earth. The Sieur de la Salle, who always carried 
an astrolabe, took the latitude of this mouth. . . . This river is 
estimated at 800 leagues long: we travelled at least 350 from 
the mouth of the river Seignelay. 

To the energetic Irishman, Thomas Dongan, Governor of 26. Dongan 
the Province of New York under the later Stuarts, belongs vme^i68q- 
the credit of first perceiving clearly and resisting firmly the 1687 
dangerous French encroachments to the south of the great I^^l 
lakes.^ Dongan protests first to Governor La Barre of 

1 The famous Latin hymn Vexilla regis prodejint (" The banners of the 
King advance "), composed by Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century. 

2 The ancient hymn Te Deiit?i laiidamiis (" We praise thee, O God ! "), 
composed by an unknown writer in the fourth century. 

^ " Dongan entered the lists against the French. If his policy should 
prevail, New France would dwindle to a feeble province on the 
St. Lawrence : if the French policy should prevail, the English col- 
onies would remain a narrow strip along the sea. Dongan's cause was 
that of all the colonies ; but they all stood aloof and left him to wage 
the strife alone. Canada was matched against New York, or rather 
against the Governor of New York." — Parkman, Count Frontenac and 
New France under Louis XIV, Vol. I, p. 124. 



88 The Establishment of the English 

Canada, then to his successor, Denonville (1685), against 
the extension of their authority and arms among the Iro- 
quois, who were " his Majesty of Great Britain's subjects." 
The correspondence between Dongan and Denonville is 
an amusing compound of deferential scolding and tart 
amenities.^ 

GOVERNOR DONGAN TO M. DE DENONVILLE, 

OCTOBER 13, 1685 
Sir: 

I have had the honor of receiving your letter, and greatly 
rejoice at having so good a neighbor whose character is so wide 
spread that it has anticipated your arrival. I have written several 
letters to M. de la Barre ; that which you have honored is one 
of the first. I presume the others have not been shown to you. 
He meddled in an affair that might have created some indiffer- 
ence between the two Crowns which gave me considerable pain, 
as I entertain a very high respect for the King of France, of 
whose bread I have eaten so much,^ that I feel myself under 
the obligation to prevent whatsoever can give the least umbrage 
to our masters. M. de la Barre is a very worthy gentleman, but 
he has not written to me in a civil and befitting style. . . . 

The King your master has no doubt been deeply afflicted at 
the death of the late King Charles^ of glorious memory, and 
I trust his present Majesty [James II] will keep up as good 
understanding and amity as the late King with the Crown of 
France. It will not be my fault if we do not cultivate a cordial 
friendship, being, with respect and truth, 

Your most affectionate servant, 

Dongan 

1 Dongan in his report to the Lords of Trade in 1687 writes : " The 
new Governor Monsr de Nonville has written mee that hee desires to 
have a very good correspondence with this Governmt & I hope he will 
bee as good as his word." — O'Callaghan, Documentary History of 
New York, Vol. I, p. 158. 

2 Dongan had commanded an Irish regiment in the army of 
Louis XIV. 

8 Charles the Second, who died February 6, 1685. 



The Struggle with France for North America 89 

M. DE DENONVILLE TO GOVERNOR DONGAN, 

JUNE 5, 1686 
Sir : 

I have rec'^ the letter you did me the honor to write me on 
the 13th Octb' last. The very particular regard I have for your 
merit causes me to receive with much pleasure all the kind 
expressions with which your letter is filled. Be assured, Sir, 
that I can appreciate all the obligations I am under to endeavor 
to deserve your friendship. . . . 

In regard to the business wherein Mons^" de la Barre inter- 
fered with what might have created a coolness between the two 
Crowns, as you write me, I presume you refer to his quarrel 
with the Senecas. As to that, I shall state. Sir, to you that I 
believe you understand the character of that nation sufficiently 
well to perceive that it is not easy to live in friendship with 
people who have neither religion nor honour nor subordination. 
M. de la Barre had many causes of complaint against their pro- 
ceedings. . . . The King, my master, entertains affection and 
friendship for that country through the zeal alone he feels for 
the Establishment of Religion there and the support and pro- 
tection of the Missionaries whose zeal to preach the gospel leads 
them to expose themselves to the brutalities and persecutions 
of the most ferocious of tribes. 

You are better acquainted than I am with what they have 
suffered, the torments they have endured and the fatigues they 
experience every day for Jesus Christ his name. I know your 
heart is penetrated with the glory of that name which makes 
Hell tremble and at the mention of which all the powers of 
Heaven fall prostrate. Shall we. Sir, be so unfortunate as to 
refuse them our Master's protection to sustain them and to con- 
tribute a little on our part to win poor souls to Jesus Christ, by 
aiding them to overcome the enemy of God who rules them. . . . 

Hitherto the avarice of our Traders warred against the Gospel 
by supplying these people with arms to wage war against us, 
and with the liquor that makes them mad. You are a man of 
rank and abounding in merit; you love the religion — Well, Sir, 
are there no means by which we can come to an understanding. 



90 The Establishment of the English 

you and I, to maintain our missionaries by keeping those fero- 
cious tribes in respect & fear. . . . What have not the Iroquois 
done to the poor people of Merilande [Maryland] and Virginia ? 
Truly, I do not understand how the heart of a Christian can be 
hardened to such a degree as to behold with a dry eye that it is 
they themselves who destroy their bretheren and compatriots. . . . 
I should have greatly desired to be conversant with English, 
to be able to write you in your tongue, and thus prove to you 
the consideration I entertain for you. But as I know that you 
are acquainted with French, I have presumed you would consent 
that I should not borrow another language, in order to avoid the 
risk of writing you in villainous latin. 

I am, Sir, 
Your most humble & most obedient servant 

M. de Denonville 

GOVERNOR DONGAN TO M. DE DENONVILLE, 

MAY 22, 1686 

I have sent for the five nations of the Indyans that belong to 
this Government to meet me at this place [Albany], to give them 
in charge, that they should not goe to your side of the great 
lakes, nor- disturb your Indyans and traders, but since my 
comeing here I am informed that our Indyans are aprehensive 
of warr, by your putting stores into Cataract^ and ordering 
some forces to meet there ; I know you are a man of judgment, 
and that you will not attack the King of England's subjects. . . . 
I am likewise informed that you intended to build a fort at a 
place called Ohniagero [Niagara] on this side of the lake within 
my master's territoryes without question, (I cannot beleev it) that 
a person that has your reputation in the world, would follow the 
steps of Mons'' Labarr [de la Barre], and be ill advized by some 
interested persons in your Govern^ to make disturbance between 

1 In his report to the Lords of Tr^ide in 1687 Dongan says: "Ever 
since my coming hither it has been no small trouble to keep the Sini- 
caes [Senecas] from making warr upon the French, Monsieur de la 
Barre was very hot upon it & brought a great many men to a place 
called Cadaraque [Cataract, Fort Frontenac, or the present Kingston] 
lying on the lake, with the intent to fall on the Indians. . . . Mons^ 



The Struggle with France for North America 91 

our Masters subjects in those parts of the world for a little 
pelttree [peltry] ; when all those differences may be ended by 
an amicable correspondence between us ; if there be anything 
amiss, I doe assure you it shall not be my fault, tho' we have 
suffered much, and doe dayly by your people's tradeing within 
the King of England's territoryes. . . . 

Setting apart the station I am in, I am as much Mons*" Des 
Novilles [Denonville's] humble servant as any friend he has, 
and will omit no opportunity of manifesting the same. . . . 

M. DE DENONVILLE TO GOVERNOR DONGAN, 

JUNE 20, 1686 
Sir, 

I received the letter which you did me the honor to write me 
on the 2 2d May last. You will sufficiently learn in the end how 
devoid of all foundation are the advices which you have had of 
my pretended designs, and that all that has been told you by the 
deserters from the Colony [New France] ought to be received 
by you with much suspicion. You, Sir, are too well acquainted 
with the service and the manner that things must be conducted, 
to take any umbrage at the supplies which I send to Cataracouy 
[Cataract] for the subsistence of the soldiers I have there. You 
know the Savages sufficiently to be well assured that it would be 
very imprudent on my part to leave that place without having 
enough of supplies and munitions there for one year's time. . . 

In respect to the pretensions which you say you have to the 
lands of this country, certainly you are not well informed of all 
the entries into possession (^prises de possessions) which have 
been made in the name of the King my Master, and of the 
establishments of long standing which we have on the land and 
on the lakes ; and as I have no doubt but our Masters will 
easily agree among themselves, seeing the union and good 
understanding that obtain between them,^ I willingly consent 

de Nonville [Denonville] put a great deal of provisions into & keeps 
four or five hundred men in Cadaraque." — O'Callaghan, Documentary 
History of New York, Vol. I, p. 158. 

1 For the relations of the later Stuarts with Louis XIV of France 
and the change in those relations brought about by the accession of 
William of Orange, see Muzzey, An American History, pp. 91-92. 



92 The Establishment of the E?iglish 

with you that their Majesties regulate the limit among them- 
selves, wishing nothing more than to live with you in good 
understanding; but to that end, Sir, it would be very apropos 
that a gentleman, so worthy as you, should not grant protection 
to all the rogues, vagabonds and thieves who desert and seek 
refuge with you, and who to acquire some merit with you, be- 
lieve they cannot do better than to tell you many impertinencies 
of us, which will have no end so long as you will listen to them. 
Your very humble and very obedient Servant 

The M. de Denonville 

GOVERNOR DONGAN TO M. DE DENONVILLE, 

JULY 26, 1686 
Sir, 

I had the honor to receave two letters from you one dated 
the 6th the other the 20th of June last. . . . Beleive it it is 
much joy to have soe good a neighbour of soe excellent qualifi- 
cations and temper and of a humour altogether differing from 
M. de la Barre your predecessor who was so furious and hasty 
very much addicted to great words as if I had bin to have bin 
frighted by them. . . . 

I have heard that before ever the King your Master pre- 
tended to Cannida, the Indians so far as the South sea were 
under the English Dominion and always traded with Albany, 
Maryland and Virginia, but that according to your desire with 
very good reason is wholly referred to our Masters, and I 
heartely pray that neither you nor myselfe give occasion of any 
of the least misunderstanding between them. . . . The stricktest 
care shall be taken concerning runawayes from you — but if 
there be any soldiers who have deserted, I desire you to give 
me the assurance that they shall not loose their lives. 
Sir, 
Your most humble and affectionate servant 

Tho. Dongan 



The Struggle with France f 01^ North America 93 

M. DE DENONVILLE TO GOVERNOR DONGAN, 
OCTOBER 1, 1686 

... I do not believe, Sir, that the King your Master approves 
all the pains you have taken to induce by presents and arms, 
the entire Iroquois nation to wage war this year against us — 
nor the exhortations you have made them to pillage the French 
who trade to places which we acquired heretofore, previous to 
New York being what it is. You proposed, Sir, to submit every- 
thing to the decision of our Masters. Nevertheless your emissary 
to the Onnontague's [Onondagas] told all the Nations, in your 
name, to pillage and make war on us. . . . I ask you. Sir, what 
do you wish me to think of all this, and if these things accord 
with the letter you did me the honour to write on the 27 th of 
July, which is filled with civilities and just sentiments. ... I am 
heartily convinced of the zeal of the King your Master for the 
progress of the Religion . . . but it were desirable. Sir, that his 
piety should have the like effect under your orders, that you 
would enter with greater accord than you do into the means of 
checking the insolence of the enemies of the Faith . . . think 
you. Sir, that Religion will make any progress whilst your mer- 
chants will supply, as they do, Eau de Vie in abundance which, 
as you ought to know, converts the Savages into Demons and 
their Cabins into counterparts and theatres of Hell. 

I hope. Sir, you will reflect on all this, and that you will be 
so good as to contribute to that union which I desire and which 
you wish for. . . . 

Your very humble and obedient Servant 

The M. de Denonville 

GOVERNOR DONGAN TO M. DE DENONVILLE, 
DECEMBER 1, 1686 

. . . Bee assured. Sir, that I have not solicited nor bribed the 
Indians to arme and make warr against you. ... I have only 
permitted severall of Albany to trade amongst the remotest In- 
dians with strict orders not to meddle with any of your people, 
and I hope they will find the same civillity from you. ... I have 



94 The Establishnieiit of the English 

written to the King my Master who hath as much zeal as any 
prince liveing to propagate the Christian faith and assure[d] him 
how necessary it is to send hither some Fathers to preach the 
Gospel to the natives allyed to us, and care would be then taken 
to dissuade them from their drunken debauches, though certainly 
our Rum doth as little hurt as your Brandy and in the opinion 
of Christians is much more wholesome ; however, to keep the 
Indians temperate and sober is a very good and Christian per- 
formance, but to prohibit them all strong liquors seems a little 
hard and very turkish. . . , 

Sir, assuredly with all due respect 

Your most humble and affectionate servant 

T. Dongan 

DONGAN TO DENONVILLE 

June 20, 1687 

S"", I send you some Oranges hearing they are a rarity in your 
partes and would send more but the bearer wants conveniency 
of Carriage. 

DENONVILLE TO DONGAN 

August 27, 1687 

I thank you. Sir, for your oranges. It was a great pity that 
they should have been all rotten. 

27. The Benjamin Franklin, whose long life almost spanned the 

ofuS,^l754 eighteenth century (1706- 1790), was the most versatile 
[96] genius of our colonial period. A few months before his 
death he received from President Washington this message: 
''If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for 
talents, if to be beloved for philanthropy can gratify the 
human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation that 
you have not lived in vain." ^ One of Franklin's most 

1 Writings of George Washington, ed. W. C. Ford, Vol. XI, p. 432. 



TJie Stniggle with France for North America 95 

cherished plans was the union of the colonies under the 
presidency of a benevolent governor-general from the 
mother land, for better mutual acquaintance and common 
defense against the French and Indians. In his "Auto- 
biography," he gives the following account of the plan 
of union : 

In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, a con- 
gress of commissioners from the different colonies was, by order 
of the Lords of Trade,^ to be assembled at Albany, there to con- 
fer with the chiefs of the Six Nations concerning the means of 
defending both their country and ours. Governor Hamilton hav- 
ing received this order, acquainted the House with it, requesting 
they would furnish proper presents for the Indians, to be given 
on this occasion ; and naming the speaker (Mr. Norris) and my- 
self to join Mr. Thomas Penn and Mr. Secretary Peters as com- 
missioners to act for Pennsylvania. The House approv'd the 
nomination, and provided the goods for the present . . . and 
we met the other commissioners at Albany about the middle 
of June. 

In our way thither, I projected and drew a plan for the union 
of all the colonies under one government, so far as might be 
necessary for defence, and other important general purposes. 
As we passed through New York, I had there shown my project 
to Mr. James Alexander and Mr. Kennedy, two gentlemen of 
great knowledge in public affairs, and, being fortified by their 
approbation, I ventured to lay it before the Congress. It then 
appeared that several of the commissioners had formed plans 
of the same kind. A previous question was first taken, whether 
a union should be established, which passed in the affirmative 
unanimously. A committee was then appointed, one member 
from each colony, to consider the several plans and report. 
Mine happen'd to be preferr'd, and, with a few amendments, was 
accordingly reported. 

1 The Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations was a board 
created in 1696 by William III, a reorganization of the old Council for 
Foreign Plantations appointed by Charles II in 1660. 



96 The EstablisJimcjit of the English 

By this plan the general government was to be administered 
by a president-general, appointed and supported by the crown, 
and a grand council was to be chosen by the representatives of 
the people of the several colonies, met in their respective assem- 
blies. The debates upon it in Congress went on daily, hand in 
hand with the Indian business. Many objections and difficulties 
were started, but at length they were all overcome, and the plan 
was unanimously agreed to, and copies ordered to be transmitted 
to the Board of Trade and to the assemblies of the several prov- 
inces. Its fate was singular : the assemblies did not adopt it, as 
they all thought there was too much pj-eivgative in it, and in 
England it was judg'd to have too much of the democratic. . . . 

I am still of the opinion that it would have been happy for 
both sides of the water if it had been adopted. The colonies, 
so united, would have been sufficiently strong to have defended 
themselves ; there would then have been no need of troops from 
England : of course, the subsequent pretence for taxing America, 
and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided. 
But such mistakes are not new ; history is full of the errors of 
states and princes. 

" Look round the habitable world, how few 
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue ! " 

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not 
generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying 
into execution new projects. The best public measures are 
therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom^ but forc'd 
by the occasion. 

The plan drafted by Franklin was as follows : 

SHORT HINTS TOWARDS A SCHEME FOR UNITING THE 
NORTHERN COLONIES 

A Governor- General 

To be appointed by the king. 

To be a military man. 

To have a salary from the crown. 



The Struggle zvith France for North America 97 

To have a negation [veto] on all acts of the Grand Council, 
and carry into execution whatever is agreed on by him and 
that Council. 

Grand Council 

One member to be chosen by the Assembly of each of the 
smaller colonies, and two or more by each of the larger, in 
proportion to the sums they pay yearly into the general treasury. 

Members' Pay 
shillings sterling per diem, during their sitting, and 



milage for travelling expenses. 

Place and Time of Meeting 

To meet ^ times every year, at the capital of each colony, 

in course, unless particular circumstances and emergencies re- 
quire more frequent meetings, and alteration in the course of 
places. The governor-general to judge of those circumstances, 
&c. and call by his writs. 

Gene7'al Treasury 

Its fund, an excise [internal revenue tax] on strong liquors, 
pretty equally drunk in the colonies, or duty on liquor imported, 

or shillings on each license of a public house, or excise on 

superfluities, as tea, &c. &c. All which would pay in some pro- 
portion to the present wealth of each colony, and increase as 
that wealth increases, and prevent disputes about the inequality 
of quotas. To be collected in each colony and lodged in their 
treasury, to be ready for the payment of orders issuing from 
the governor-general and grand council jointly. 

Duty and Poiuer of the Gover?ior-Ge?ieral and Grand Council 

To order all Indian treaties. Make all Indian purchases not 
within proprietary grants. Make and support new settlements, 
by building forts, raising and paying soldiers to garrison the forts, 
defend the frontiers, and annoy the enemy. Equip guard-vessels 

1 Later filled in " ten." 2 Later filled in " once." 



98 The Establishment of the English 

to scour the coasts from privateers in time of war, and protect 
the trade, and everything that shall be found necessary for the 
defence and support of the colonies in general, and increasing 
and extending their settlements &c. For the expense they may 
draw on the fund in the treasury of any colony. 

Manner of Forming this Union 

The scheme, being first well considered, corrected, and im- 
proved by the commissioners at Albany, to be sent home, and 
an act of Parliament obtained for establishing it. 

The draft was sent to Mr. James Alexander with the 

following letter : 

New York, June 8, 1754 

Mr. Alexander is requested to peruse these Hints, and make 
remarks in correcting or improving the scheme,^ and send the 
paper with such remarks to D'' Golden, for his sentiments, who 
is desired to forward the whole to Albany to their very humble 
servant, ^ Franklin 

' The Fall of New France 

28. Wash- As the eighteenth century progressed the rivalry between 

baLy°to thl" French and English in America increased. The abandon- 
French forts, ment of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Hudson Bay 
1753 ■' 

region to the English, and the recognition of the English 



[97] 



protectorate over the Iroquois, by the Treaty of Utrecht 
(171 3), marked the beginning of the disintegration of the 
French power in the new world. The colonies, following 
the example of New York, gradually woke to the danger 
of the French establishments behind the Alleghenies ; 

1 Several changes were made in the plan before its adoption at 
Albany. The student may find these changes by comparing the present 
text with the finished plan as published in Macdonald, Select Charters 
of American History, 1606-177 5, pp. 253-257, or in the Old South Leaflets, 
No. 9. 



The Struggle with France for North America 99 

notably Virginia/ whose loosely worded charter of 1609 
gave her claims to all the Ohio valley. When the French 
built forts to connect the Great Lakes with the Ohio river 
system, Governor Dinwiddle of Virginia, following general 
instructions to colonial governors from their chief Lord 
Holdernesse to employ force if necessary to '' prevent any 
such unlawful undertakings," sent George Washington, 
whom he called ''a person of distinction," ^ to warn the 
French to desist. When Washington's Journal of the ex- 
pedition was published in 1754 copies were sent to all the 
colonial governors. 

Wednesday, October 31, 1753 

I was commissioned and appointed by the Honorable Robert 
Diiiwiddie^ Esq : Governor, &:c. of Virgiiiia, to visit or deliver 
a letter to the Commandant of the FreJich forces on the Ohio, 
and set out on the intended Journey the same day. The next 
day, I arrived at Fi'edei'icksburg, and engaged Mr. Jacob Van- - 
braavi to be my French interpreter ; and proceeded with him to 

1 Colonel William Byrd of Virginia wrote the following " humble 
representation" of the situation in 1735: "On the back of the British 
Colonies on the Continent of America, about 250 miles from the Ocean, 
runs a chain of High Mountains stretching away from the North East 
to the South. ... As the French have settlements on the Western 
Rivers, it will be greatly for their advantage to be beforehand with the 
English in gaining possession of the Mountains, and for so doing (be- 
sides their encroaching Temper) they will have the following Tempta- 
tions. First that they may make themselves masters of all the Mines, 
with which there is reason to believe these Mountains abound. ... In 
the next place, that they may engross all the Trade with western In- 
dians for Skins and Furrs . . . and lastly that they may build Forts to 
command the Passes thro the said Mountains, whereby they will be not 
only in condition to secure their own Traffick and Settlements West- 
ward, but also to invade the British Colonies from Thence. . . . These 
inducements to the French make it prudent for a British Ministry to be 
watchfull and prevent their Seizing this important Barrier." — J. S. 
Bassett (ed.). The Writings of Colonel William Byrd, p. 390. 

2 Washington had been appointed Major of Virginia militia, at a salary 
of ;i^ioo a year. 



lOO The EstablisJimeiit of tJie English 

Alexa7idna, where we provided necessaries. From thence we 
went to Winchester, and got Baggage, Horses, &c. ; and from 
thence we pursued the new Road to Wills- Creek [Cumberland, 
Md.], where we arrived the 14^'' of Nove?nber. . . . 

The excessive Rains and vast Quantities of Snow which had 
fallen [early in November!] prevented our reaching Mr.Erazier's, 
an Indian Trader at the Mouth of Turtle Creek on Monongehela 
(River) till Thursday, the 22^. . . . Shingiss, King of the Dela- 
wares . . . attended us to the Z^^^j--town, where we arrived 
between Sun-setting and Dark, the 25'^ Day after I left 
Williamsburg. . . . 

As soon as I came to the Town, I went to Monakatoocha 
[an Oneida chief] (as the Half-King was out at his Hunting- 
Cabbin on little Beaver Creek, about 1 5 miles off), and informed 
him . . . that I was sent a messenger to the French general ; 
and was ordered to call upon the Sachems of the Six Nations, 
to acquaint them with it. I gave him a String of Wampum and 
a Twist of Tobacco, and desired him to send for the Half-King ; 
which he promised to do by a Runner in the Morning, and for 
other Sachems. I invited him and the other great Men present 
to my Tent, where they stay'd about an Hour and return'd. . . . 

25th. . . . About 3 o'clock this Evening the Half-King came 
to Town. I went up and invited him privately to my Tent ; 
and desired him to relate some of the Particulars of his Journey 
to the French Commandant and Reception there : Also to give 
me an account of the Ways and Distance. He told me that the 
nearest and levellest Way was now impassable, by Reason of 
many large mirey Savannas ; that we must be obliged to go by 
Venango, and should not get to the near Fort under 5 or 6 
Nights Sleep, good Travelling. . . . 

26th. We met in Council at the Long-Honse, about 9 o'clock, 
where I spoke to them [the Sachems] as follows : 

'' Brothers, I have called you together in Council by order 
of your Brother, the Governor of Virginia, to acquaint you 
that I am sent with all possible Dispatch, to visit, and deliver 
a Letter to the French Commandant, of very great Importance 
to your Brothers, the English ; and I dare say to you their 
friends and allies. 



TJie Struggle with France for North America lOi 

" I was desired, Brothers, by your Brother the Governor, to 
call upon you, the Sachems of the Nations, to inform you of it, 
and to ask your Advice and Assistance, to proceed the nearest 
and best Road to the French. You see. Brothers, I have gotten 
thus far on my Journey. 

'' His Honour likewise desired me to apply to you for some of 
your young Men, to conduct and provide Provisions for us on 
our Way ; and be a Safe-guard against those French India7is 
who have taken up the hatchet against us. I have spoken this 
particularly to you, Brothers, because his Honour our Governor 
treats you as good friends and Allies ; and holds you in great 
Esteem. To confirm what I have said, I give you this String 
of Wampum." 

After they had considered for some time on the above Dis- 
course, the Half-King got up and, spoke. . . . 

" I rely upon you as a Brother ought to do, as you say we 
are Brothers and one People : we shall put Heart in Hand and 
speak to our Fathers the French concerning the Speech they 
made to me ^ ; and you may depend that we will endeavor to 
be your Guard. ..." 

30th. . . . We set out about 9 o'clock with the Half- King 
Jeskakake, White Thunder, and the Hunter ; and travelled on 
the road to Venango^ where we arrived the 4^^ of F>ecef?iber, 
without any Thing remarkable happening but a continued Series 
of bad Weather. This is an old Indian Town, situated at the 
Mouth of Fre?ich Creek on Ohio ; and lies near N. about 60 
miles from the Loggs-To-wn, but more than 70 the Way we 
were obliged to go. We found the French Colours hoisted at 
a House from which they had driven Mr. John Frazier, an 
English Subject. I immediately repaired to it to know where 
the Commander resided. There were three Officers, one of 

1 The Half-King had just returned from a visit to the French at 
Venango to try to dissuade them from " building houses on the Indians' 
land and taking it by force." The French general had defiantly replied 
that he was as little afraid of the Indians as of " Flies or Musquitos," 
and that his forces were " as the Sand upon the Sea Shore. ... I 
tell you that down that River [Ohio] I will go, and will build upon it 
according to my command." — Washington, Journal, p. 18. 



I02 TJic Establishment of the English 

whom, Capt. Joncaire, informed me that he had the Command 
of the Ohio : But that there was a General Officer at the near 
Fort, where he advised me to apply for an Answer. He in- 
vited us to sup with them : and treated us with the greatest 
Complaisance. 

The Wine, as they dosed themselves pretty plentifully with 
it, soon banished the Restraint which at first appeared in their 
Conversation ; and gave a Licence to their Tongues to reveal 
their Sentiments more freely. They told me, that it was their 

absolute Design to take Possession of the Ohio, and by G 

they would do it : For altho' they were sensible the English 
could raise two Men for their one ; yet they knew their Motions 
were too slow and dilatory to prevent any Undertaking of theirs. 
They pretended to have an undoubted Right to the River, from 
a Discovery made by one La Salle 60 years ago. . . . 

7th (Dec). ... At 1 1 o'clock we set out for the Fort, and 
were prevented from arriving there till the 11*^ by excessive 
Rains, Snows, and bad Travelling through many Mires and 
Swamps. . . . 

12th. I was prepared early to wait on the Commander, and 
was received and conducted to him by the Second Officer in 
Command. I acquainted him with my Business and offered my 
Commission and Letter. . . . This Commander is a Knight of 
the Military Order of St. Lewis and named Legardejir de St. 
Pierre. He is an elderly Gentleman and has much the Air of 
a Soldier. . . . The Chief Officers retired to hold a Council of 
War ; which gave me an Opportunity of taking the Dimensions 
of the Fort, and making what Observations I could. . . . 

14th. This Evening I received an Answer to his Honour 
the Governour's [Dinwiddle's] Letter from the Commandant. . . . 

15 th. The Commandant ordered a plentiful Store of Liquor, 
Provision &c. to be put on Board our Canoe ; he appeared to 
be extremely complaisant, tho' he was exerting every Artifice 
which he could invent to set our own Lndians at variance with 
us, to prevent their going until after our Departure. . . . 

1 6th. . . . We had a tedious and very fatiguing Passage 
down the Creek. Several Times we had like to have been 



The Stncggle zvitk France for North America 103 

staved against Rocks ; and many Times were obliged all Hands 
to get out and remain in the Water Half an Hour or more, 
getting over the Shoals. 

23d. .. . The Horses grew less able to travel every Day ; 
the Cold increased very fast ; and the Roads were becoming 
much worse by a deep Snow continually freezing. Therefore 
as I was uneasy to get back, to make Report of my Proceed- 
ings to his Honour the Governor, I determined to prosecute 
my Journey the nearest Way through the Woods, on Foot. . . . 
I took my necessary Papers ; pulled off my Cloaths ; and tied 
myself up in a Match Coat. Then with Gun in Hand and 
Pack at my Back, in which were niy Papers and Provisions, I 
set out with Mr. Gist^ fitted in the same manner. . . . 

The Day following ... we fell in with a Party of French 
Indians, who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at 
Mr. Gist or me, not 15 steps off, but fortunately missed. . . . 
The next day we got to the River. . . . We expected to have 
found the River frozen, but it was not, only about 50 yards 
from each Shore. . . . There was no way for getting over but 
on a Raft. Which we set about with but one poor Hatchet and 
finished just after Sun-setting. . . . Before we were half way 
over we were jammed in the Ice in such a Manner that we 
expected every moment our Raft to sink and ourselves to perish. 
I put out my setting pole to try to stop the Raft that the Ice 
might pass by ; when the Rapidity of the Stream threw it with 
so much Violence against the Pole that it jerked me out into 
Ten Feet Water: but I fortunately saved myself by catching 
hold of one of the Raft Logs. . . . The Cold was so extremely 
severe that Mr. Gist had all his Fingers and some of his Toes 
frozen, . . . 

. . . Arrived at Mr. Gisfs at Monongahela the 2'^ (Jan.), 
where I bought a Horse, Saddle, etc. The 6'^ we met 17 
Horses loaded with Materials and Stores, for a Fort at the 
Forks of the Ohio, and the Day after some Families going out 
to settle. This Day we arrived at Will's Creek, after as fatiguing 
a Journey as it is possible to conceive, rendered so by excessive 
bad Weather. . . . 



1 04 TJie Establishment of the Efiglish 

Arrived in Williamsburgh the 1 6''' ; when I waited upon his 
Honour the Governor with the Letter I had brought from the 
French Commandant ^ ; and to give an Account of the Success 
of my Proceedings. 

29. The fall James Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham was 

SepteS-^' ^he decisive blow in the struggle between England and 

ber 13, 1759 France for mastery in North America. The following 

l^^^l account of the battle is taken from the '' Historical Journal " 

of Captain John Knox of Wolfe's army. The Journal was 

published in London in 1769, but, according to the author's 

statement in the preface, " was written mostly at the time, 

and finished almost as soon as the events it contains." 

Thursday, September 13, 1759 
Before day-break this morning we made a descent upon the 
north shore, about a quarter of a mile to the eastward of Sillery ; 
and the light troops were fortunately, by the rapidity of the 
current, carried down lower, between us and Cape Diamond ; 
we had in this debarkation thirty flat-bottomed boats,' containing 
about sixteen hundred men. . . . The chain of centries [sentries] 
which the enemy had posted along the summit of the heights 
galled us a little and picked off several men and some Officers 
before our light infantry got up to dislodge them. This grand 
enterprise was conducted and executed with great good order 
and discretion ; as fast as we landed the boats put off for rein- 
forcements, and the troops formed with much regularity : the 
General [Wolfe] with Brigadiers Moncton and Murray were 
a-shore with the first division. We lost no time here but clam- 
bered up one of the steepest precipices that can be conceived, 

1 This letter, called in the Pennsylvania Archives (ii, 238) "a haughty 
answer," determined Dinwiddle to raise forces to send to the Ohio. 
Washington was given charge of one of the companies, with instructions 
to hasten to finish " the Fort which I expect is there already begun by 
the Ohio Company" (see Journal above, ad fin.). It was the clash of 
this little force of Washington's with Jumonville's men at Great 
Meadow that opened the Seven Years' War (see Muzzey, An American 
History, p. 97). 



The Struggle with France for N'orth America 105 

being almost a perpendicular and of an incredible height. As 
soon as we gained the summit all was quiet, and not a shot 
was heard. ... It was by this time clear day-light. Here we 
formed again, the river and the south country in our rear, our 
right extending to the town, our left to Sillery, and halted a few 
minutes. . . . We then faced to the right and marched towards 
the town by files till we came to the plains of Abraham ; an 
even piece of ground which Mr. Wolfe had made choice of 
while we stood forming upon the hill. Weather showery. About 
six o'clock the enemy first made their appearance upon the 
heights, between us and the town ; whereon we halted, and 
wheeled to the right, thereby forming the line of battle. . . . 

About ten o'clock the enemy began to advance briskly in 
three columns, with loud shouts and recovered arms, two of 
them inclining to the left of our army, and the third towards 
our right, fireing obliquely at the two extremities of our line from 

the distance of one hundred and thirty , until they came 

within forty yards ; which our troops withstood with the greatest 
intrepidity and firmness, still reserving their fire, and paying 
the strictest obedience to their Officers, this uncommon steadi- 
ness, together with the havoc which the grapeshot from our 
field pieces made among them, threw them into some disorder, 
and was most critically maintained by a well-timed, regular, and 
heavy discharge of our small arms, such as they could no longer 
oppose ; hereupon they gave way, and fled with precipitation, 
so that by the time the cloud of smoke was vanished, our men 
were again loaded, and . . . pursued them almost to the gates of 
the town, and the bridge over the little river, redoubling our fire 
with great eagerness, making many Officers and men prisoners. 
(The weather cleared up with a comfortably warm sun-shine.) . . . 

Our joy at this success is inexpressibly damped by the loss 
we thus sustained of one of the greatest heroes which this or 
any other age can boast of, — General James Wolfe, who re- 
ceived his mortal wound, as he was exerting himself at the head 
of the grenadiers of Louisbourg ; and Brigadier Monckton was 
unfortunately wounded ... at much the same time. . . . 

The Officers who are prisoners say that Quebec will sur- 
render in a few days ; some deserters who came out to us this 



1 06 The Establishment of the English 

evening agree in that opinion, and inform us that the Sieur de 
Montcalm is dying in great agony of a wound he received today 
in their retreat. Thus has our late renowned Commander, by 
his superior eminence in the art of war, and a most judicious 
coup d'etat, made a conquest of this fertile, healthy, and hitherto 
formidable country, with a handful of troops only, in spite of 
the political schemes and most vigorous efforts, of the famous 
Montcalm ... at the head of an army considerably more nu- 
merous. My pen is too feeble to draw the character of this 
British Achilles ; but the same may with justice be said of him 
as was said of Henry IV of France. He 7aas possessed of courage, 
humanity, clemency, generosity, affability, and politeness. . . . 
" When the matter match'd his mighty mind 

Up rose the Hero : on his piercing eye 

Sat observation, on each glance of thought 

Decision followed, as the thunderbolt 

Pursues the flash." 

The following letter from General Monckton acquaint- 
ing Pitt with the result of the battle, and the Articles of 
Capitulation of the fortress of Quebec are taken from 
" Natural and Civil History of the French Dominion in 
America," by Thos. Jeffreys, "' Geographer to the Prince of 
Wales." It was printed at Charing Cross, London, 1760. 

LETTER FROM THE HONOURABLE GENERAL MONCKTON 
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MR. SECRETARY PITT, 
DATED AT CAMP AT POINT LEVI, SEPTEMBER 15, 1759 

Sir 

I have the pleasure to acquaint you, that, on the 13'^ instant, 
his majesty's troops gained a very signal victory over the French, 
a little above the town of Quebec. Gen. Wolfe, exerting himself 
on the right of oui line, received a wound pretty early, of which 
he died soon after, and I had myself the great misfortune of 
receiving one in my right breast by a ball, that went through 
part of my lungs (and which has been cut out under the blade 
bone of my shoulder) just as the French were giving way, which 



The Struggle with France for North America 107 

obliged me to quit the field. I have therefore, Sir, desired Gen. 
Towns/lend, who now commands the troops before the town (and 
of which I am in hopes he will be soon in possession) to acquaint 
you with the particulars of that day, and of the operations 

I have the honor to be, &c. 

Rob. Monckton 

ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION AGREED ON BETWEEN 
GENERAL TOWNSHEND AND M. DE RAMZEY, COM- 
MANDER OF QUEBEC 

Art. I. . . . The garrison of the town, composed of land forces, 
marines, and sailors, shall march out with their arms and baggage, 
drums beating, lighted matches, with two pieces of cannon, and 
twelve rounds, and shall be embarked as conveniently as possible, 
in order to be landed at the first port in France. 

Art. II. That the inhabitants shall be maintained in possession 
of their houses, goods, effects, and privileges. 

Art. III. That the said inhabitants shall not be molested on 
account of their having borne arms for the defence of the town, 
as they were forced to it, and as it is customary for the inhabit- 
ants of the colonies of both crowns to serve as militia. . . . 

Art. VI. That the exercise of the Catholic Apostolic and 
Roman religion shall be preserved, and that safe-guards shall be 
granted to the houses of the clergy, and to the monasteries, 
particularly to the Bishop of Quebec . . . until the possession of 
Canada shall have been decided by a treaty between their most 
Christian and Britannic Majesties. 

Art. VII. That the artillery and warlike stores shall be de- 
livered up bo?iafide, and an inventory taken thereof. . . . 

Art. X. That the commander of the city of Quebec shall be 
permitted to send advice to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor 
general, of the reduction of the town ; as also that this general 
shall be allowed to write to the French ministry to inform them 
thereof. . . . 

duplicates signed at the Camp before Quebec 
Sepr. 18, 1759 
C. Saunders, G. Townshend, De Ramesay 



PART II. THE SEPARATION OF THE 
COLONIES FROM ENGLAND 



I 



PART II. THE SEPARATION OF 
THE COLONIES FROM ENGLAND 

CHAPTER IV 

BRITISH RULE IN AMERICA 

The Authority of Parliament in the Colonies 

No other Englishman was better quahfied to speak on 3o. The 
American affairs than Thomas Pownall, royal governor of "o?onfes° *^* 
the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1757 to 1760. Pow- [los] 
nail was one of the small group of statesmen who realized 
the '' nascent crisis " in the colonies and advocated con- 
sulting the sentiments of the colonists themselves in deter- 
mining the relation of America to the home government. 
In 1 764, Pownall dedicated to George Grenville, the author 
of the Stamp Act, a long treatise on " The Administration 
of the Colonies," prompted, as he says in the preface, by 
" a spirit of suspicion and alarm arising, a temper of ill- 
blood infusing itself into the minds of men." Twenty years 
later, when the independence of America was acknowl- 
edged by George III, Pownall wrote : '' The publication of 
this treatise ruined me with those who had the real power 
of Government in their hands. I was not ignorant that it 
would have such effect. I sacrificed to what I thought 
truth and right, and I thank God that I have never yet 
once, to this hour, repented that I made that sacrifice. 
Perhaps they have more than once repented that they did 
not follow this advice." ^ 

1 Thomas Pownall, Three Memorials, 1784, General Preface, p. ix. 

Ill 



112 The Separation of the Colo7iies from England 

This American question, in which liberty and the rights of 
property are so deeply engaged, must now come forward ... I 
therefore address to your most serious consideration that state 
of this business which the following book contains ... I speak 
my own sentiments. I address them to your serious considera- 
tion, as I do to every man of business in the nation, with an 
hope that from conviction of the justice, policy, and necessity 
of the measure, they may become the general sentiments of the 
government, and of the people of Great Britain. ... I am no 
Partizan. I do not palliate the errors of Great Britain. I do not 
flatter the passions of America. ... I have stated the fact, and 
the right, in hopes to point out what is the true and constitu- 
tional relation between Great Britain and the American Colonies, 
what is the precise ground on which this dangerous question 
ought to be settled : How far they are to be governed by the 
vigor of external principles, by the supreme superintending 
power of the mother country : How far by the vigor of the 
internal principle of their own peculiar body politic : And what 
ought to be the mode of administration by which they are to be 
governed in their legislative, executive, judicial, and commercial 
departments, in the conduct of their money and revenues, in 
their power of making peace or war — 

It has been often suggested that care should be taken in the 
administration of the plantations ; lest in some future time these 
colonies should become independent of the mother country. But 
perhaps it may be proper on this occasion, nay, it is justice 
to say it, that if by becoming independent, is meant a revolt, 
nothing is further from their nature, their interest, their thoughts. 
. . . Their spirit abhors the sense of such ; their attachment to 
the protestant succession in the house of Hanover will ever 
stand unshaken ; and nothing can eradicate from their hearts 
their natural, almost mechanical affection to Great Britain, which 
they conceive under no other sense, nor call by any other name, 
than that of home. Besides, the merchants are, and ever must 
be, in great measure allied with those of Great Britain ; their 
very support consists in this alliance, and nothing but false 
policy here can break it. . . . Yet again, on the other hand, 



BritisJi Rule in America 113 

while [the colonies] remain under the support and protection of 
the government of the mother country ; while they profit of the 
beneficial part of its trade ; while their attachment to the present 
royal family stands firm, and their alliance with the mother 
country is inviolate, it may be worth while to inquire, whether 
they may not become and act in some cases independent of the 
government a7id laws of the mother country. . . . And if any 
measure of such independency . . . should be insisted on — 
perhaps it may be thought, that no time should be lost to 
remedy or redress these deviations ... or to remove all jeal- 
ousies arising from the idea of them, if none such really exist. 

But the true and effectual way to remove all jealousies and 
interfering between the several powers of the government of 
the mother country, and the several powers of the governments 
of the colonies, in the due and constitutional order of their sub- 
ordination, is to inquire and examine what the colonies and 
provinces really are ; what their constitution of government 
is ; what the relation between them and the mother country ; 
and in consequence of the truth and principles established on 
such examination — to maintain firmly both in claim and exer- 
cise, the rights and powers of the supreme government of the 
mother country, with all acknowledgment of the rights, liberties, 
privileges, immunities, and franchises of the Colonists, both per- 
sonal and political, treating them really as what they are. Until 
this be done there can be no government properly so called ; the 
various opinions, connections and interests of Britains [Britons], 
both in this island, and in America, will divide them into parties 
— the spirit of mutual animosity and opposition will take ad- 
vantage of the total want of established and fixed principles on 
this subject, to work these parties into faction ; and then the 
predominancy of one faction, or the other, acting under the 
mask of the forms of government, will altaasately be called 
government. . . . 

It is a duty of perfect obligation from government toward 
the colonies, to preserve the liberty of the subject, the liberty of 
the constitution : It is a duty also of prudence in government 
toward itself, as such conduct is the only permanent and sure 



114 T^^^^ Separation of the Colonies from England 

ground, whereon to maintain the dependance of those countries, 
without destroying their utility as colonies. 

The constitutions of these communities, founded in wise 
policy, and in the laws of the British constitution, are estab- 
lished by their several charters, or by the King's commission 
to his governors. ... It [the commission] becomes the known, 
established constitution of that province which hath been estab- 
lished on it, and whose laws, courts and whole frame of legis- 
lature and judicature, are founded on it. It is the charter of 
that province ; It is the indefeasible and unalterable right of 
those people ; ... It cannot, in its essential parts, be altered 
or destroyed by any royal instructions or proclamation ; or by 
letters from secretaries of state : It cannot be superseded, or 
in part annulled, by the issuing out of any other commissions 
not known to this constitution. 

Somew^hat more foreboding for the colonies w^as the 
language of another royal governor of Massachusetts, 
Thomas Hutchinson, who remained on the field of dis- 
pute longer than Pownall, and was himself the victim, in 
the destruction of his furniture and library, of the riots 
attending the attempts to enforce the Stamp Act. In 
letters written to England in 1768 and 1769, at the 
height of the agitation over the Townshend Acts, the 
Circular Letter of Massachusetts, and the landing of 
the king's troops at Boston, Hutchinson says ; 

August 10 [1768]. Yesterday at a meeting of the merchants 
it was agreed by all present to give no more orders for goods 
from England, nor receive any on commission until the late acts 
are repealed. And it is said that all except sixteen in the town 
have subscribed an engagement of that tenor. 

October 4 [1768]. . . . Principles of government absurd 
enough spread thro' all. the colonies ; but I cannot think that 
in any colony, people of any consideration have ever been 
so mad as to think of a revolt. Many of the common people 
have been in a frenzy, and talked of dying in defence of their 



British Rule in America 115 

liberties, and have spoke and printed what is highly criminal, 
and too many of rank above the vulgar, and some in public 
posts have countenanced and encouraged them untill they in- 
creased so much in their numbers and in their opinion of 
their importance as to submit to government no more than 
they thought proper. 

January 20 [1769]. . . . This is most certainly a crisis. I 
really wish that there may not have been the least degree of 
severity beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain , . . 
the depe7idance which a colony ought to have upon the parent 
state ; but if no measures shall have been taken to secure this 
dependance, or nothing more than some declaratory acts or 
resolves, it is all over with tis. The friends of government will 
be utterly disheartened, and the friends of anarchy will be afraid 
of nothing be it ever so extravagant. . . . 

I never think of the measures necessary for the peace and 
good order of the colonies without pain. There must be an 
abridgment of what are called English liberties. I relieve my- 
self by considering that in a remove from the state of nature to 
the most perfect state of government there must be a great re- 
straint of natural liberty. I doubt whether it is possible to project 
a system of government in which a colony 3000 miles distant 
from the parent state shall enjoy all the liberty of the parent 
state. I am certain I have never yet seen the projection. I wish 
the good of the colony when I wish to see some further restraint 
of liberty rather than the connexion with the parent state should 
be broken ; for I am sure such a breach must prove the ruin 
of the colony. 

We may add to these opinions of the royal governors a 
brief extract from an address of a popularly elected gov- 
ernor, Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, entitled ''The 
Rights of Colonies Examined" (1764). Hopkins, v^ho 
later was an influential member of the Continental Con- 
gress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
was an ardent advocate of American equality with Great 
•Britain. After showing how ''colonies in general, both 



Ii6 The Separation of the Colonies from England 

ancient and modern, have always enjoyed as much freedom 
as the mother state from which they went out," Hopkins 
continues : 

From what hath been shown, it will appear beyond a doubt, 
that the British subjects in America, have equal rights with those 
in Britain ; that they do not hold those rights as a privilege 
granted them, nor enjoy them as a grace and favor bestowed ; 
but possess them as an inherent indefeasible right ; as they, and 
their ancestors, were free-born subjects, justly and naturally en- 
tided to all the rights and advantages of the British constitution. 

And the British legislative and executive powers have con- 
sidered the colonies as possessed of these rights, and have al- 
ways heretofore, in the most tender and parental manner, treated 
them as their dependent, though free, condition required. The 
protection promised on the part of the crown, with cheerfulness 
and great gratitude we acknowledge, hath at all times been given 
to the colonies. The dependence of the colonies to [on] Great 
Britain, hath been fully testified by a constant and ready obedi- 
ence to all the commands of His present Majesty, and his royal 
predecessors ; both men and money having been raised in them 
at all times when called for, with as much alacrity and in as 
large proportions as hath been done in Great Britain, the ability 
of each considered. 

It must also be confessed with thankfulness, that the first 
adventurers and their successors, for one hundred and thirty 
years, have fully enjoyed all the freedoms and immunities 
promised on their first removal from England. But here the 
scene seems to be unhappily changing. 

The British ministry, whether induced by a jealousy of the 
colonies, by false informations, or by some alteration in the sys- 
tem of political government, we have no information ; whatever 
hath been the motive, this we are sure of, the Parliament in their 
last session, passed an act, limiting, restricting, and burdening 
the trade of these colonies, much more than had ever been done 
before ; as also for greatly enlarging the power and jurisdic- 
tion of the courts of admiralty in the colonies ; and also came 
to a resolution, that it might be necessary to establish stamp 



British Ride in America 117 

duties, and other internal taxes, to be collected within them.^ 
This act and this resolution, have caused great uneasiness and 
consternation among the British subjects on the continent of 
America. . . . 

These resolutions, carried into execution, the colonies cannot 
but help consider as a manifest violation of their just and long 
enjoyed rights. For it must be confessed by all men, that they 
who are taxed at pleasure by others, cannot possibly have any 
property, can have nothing to be called their own. They who 
have no property, can have no freedom, but are indeed reduced 
to the most abject slavery. . . . 

If we are told that those who lay these taxes upon the colo- 
nies, are men of the highest character for their wisdom, justice, 
and integrity, and therefore cannot be supposed to deal hardly, 
unjustly or unequally by any ... it will make no alteration in 
the nature of the case ; for one who is bound to obey the will 
of another, is as really a slave, though he may have a good 
master, as if he had a bad one. . . . And although they may 
have a very good master at one time, they may have a very bad 
one at another. And, indeed, if the people in America are to be 
taxed by the representatives of the people in Britain, their 
malady is an increasing evil, that must always grow greater 
by time. . . . 

But it will be said, that the monies drawn from the colonies 
by duties, and by taxes, will be laid up and set apart to be used 
for their future defence. This will not at all alleviate the hard- 
ship, but serves only more strongly to mark the servile state of 
the people. Free people have ever thought, and always will 
think, that the money necessary for their defence, lies safest in 
their own hands. . . . 

We are not insensible, that when liberty is in danger, the 
liberty of complaining is dangerous ; yet a man on a wreck was 
never denied the liberty of roaring as loud as he could, says 
Dean Swift. And we believe no good reason can be given, why 
the colonies should not modestly and soberly inquire, what right 
the Parliament of Great Britain have to tax them. 

1 These acts are published in Macdonald, Select Charters . . . 1606- 
1775, PP- 272-305. 



1 1 8 TJie Separation of the Colo f lies from England 

Taxation without Representation 

31. The Thirteen years after the passage of the Stamp Act, 

the stamp Benjamin FrankUn, Commissioner of the United States 

-^•^^ at Paris, wrote the following letter to a friend, to clear 

[113] away any misapprehension as to Grenville's motive in the 

proposal of that momentous measure. The letter was 

written about a month after Franklin, with his associates 

Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, had brought to a successful 

close his negotiations for a treaty of alliance between 

France and the United States. 

Passy, March 12, 1778 
Dear Sir:— ■^' ' ^^ 

In the pamphlets you were so kind as to lend me, there is 
one important fact misstated, apparently from the writer's not 
having been furnished with good information. It is the transac- 
tion between Mr. Grenville and the colonies, wherein he under- 
stands that Mr. Grenville demanded of them a specific sum, that 
they refused to grant anything, and that it was on their refusal 
only that he made the motion for the Stamp Act No one of 
these particulars was true. The fact was this : 

Some time in the winter of 1763-4 Mr. Grenville called to- 
gether the agents of the several colonies, and told them that he 
purposed to draw a revenue from America; and to that end 
his intention was to levy a stamp duty on the colonies by act of 
Parliament in the ensuing session, of which he thought it fit 
that they should be immediately acquainted, that they might 
have time to consider; and if any other duty equally productive 
would be more agreeable to them, they might let him know it. 
The agents were therefore directed to write this to their re- 
spective Assemblies, and communicate to him the answers they 
should receive ; the agents wrote accordingly. 

I was a member in the Assembly of Pennsylvania when this 
notification came to hand. The observations there made upon 
it were, that the ancient, established, and regular method of 
drawing aid from the colonies was this: The occasion was 



British Ride in America 119 

always first considered by their sovereign in his Privy Council, 
by whose sage advice he directed his Secretary of State to write 
circular-letters to the several governors, who were directed to lay 
them before their Assemblies. In those letters the occasion was 
explained to their satisfaction, with gracious expressions of his 
Majesty's confidence in their known duty and affection, on which 
he relied that they would grant such sums as should be suitable 
to their abilities, loyalty, and zeal for his service ; that the colo- 
nies had always granted liberally on such requisitions, and so 
liberally during the late war, that the king, sensible they had 
granted much more than their proportion had recommended it to 
Parliament five years successively to make them some compensa- 
tion, and the Parliament accordingly returned them ^200,000 a 
year, to be divided among them ; that the proposition of taxing 
them in Parliament, was therefore both cruel and unjust ; that, 
by the constitution of the colonies, their business was with the 
king in matters of aid ; they had nothing to do with any finan- 
cier, nor he with them ; nor were the agents the proper channels 
through which the requisitions should be made ; it was therefore 
improper for them to enter into any stipulation, or make any 
proposition to Mr. Grenville about laying taxes on their constitu- 
ents by Parliament, which had really no right at all to tax them, 
especially as the notice he had sent them did not appear to be 
by the king's order, and perhaps was without his knowledge, as 
the king, when he would obtain anything from them, always 
accompanied his requisition with good words, but this gentle- 
man, instead of a decent demand, sent them a menace, that they 
should certainly be taxed, and only left them the choice of the 
manner. But all this notwithstanding, they were so far from 
refusing to grant money that they resolved to the following 
purpose : '' That they always had, so they always should think 
it their duty to grant aid to the crown, according to their abili- 
ties, whenever required of them in the usual constitutional 
manner." I went soon after to England and took with me an 
authentic copy of this resolution, which I presented to Mr. Gren-. 
ville before he brought in the Stamp Act. I asserted in the 
House of Commons (Mr. Grenville being present) that I had 
done so, and he did not deny it. Other colonies made similar 



I20 TJic Separation of the Colonics from England 

resolutions, and had Mr. Grenville, instead of that act, applied 
to the king in council for such requisitional letters to be circu- 
lated by the Secretary of State, I am sure he would have ob- 
tained more money from the colonies by their voluntary grants 
than he himself expected from the stamps. But he chose com- 
pulsion rather than persuasion, and would not receive from their 
good will what he thought he could obtain without it. And thus 
the golden bridge which the ingenious author [of the pamphlet 
which Franklin is criticising] thinks the Americans unwisely and 
unbecomingly refused to hold out to the minister and Parlia- 
ment, was actually held out to them, but they refused to walk 
over it. 

This is the true history of that transaction : and as it is 
probable there may be another edition of that excellent pamphlet, 
I wish this may be communicated to the candid author, who, I 
doubt not, will correct that error. 

I am ever, with sincere esteem, dear sir, your most obedient, 

humble servant, 

B. Franklm 

32. The Cir- The repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 was accompanied 
of MaLl"hu- by a Declaratory Act, asserting the right of the British 
setts Bay, Parliament '' to bind the colonies and people of America, 
subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases what- 



[117] 



soever." ''This," said John Dickinson, ''was only planting 
a barren tree that cast a shade indeed over the Colonies, 
but yielded no finite The tree, however, bore bitter fruit 
the next year in the Townshend Acts. Protests against 
the renewed determination of the British Parliament to 
tax the colonies without their consent arose on every hand. 
The most significant answer to the acts was the appoint- 
ment, February 4, 1768, of a committee of seven by the 
Massachusetts House of Representatives "to write to the 
speakers of the other assemblies with reference to their 
joining in a petition to the King." Samuel Adams, chair- 
man of the committee, drew up the following letter : 



British Ride in America 121 

Province of Massachusetts Bay 

Feb. II, 1768 
Sir : 

The House of Representatives of this Province have taken 
into their serious Consideration, the great difficultys that must 
accrue to themselves & their Constituents by the operation of 
several acts of Parliament imposing Duties and Taxes on the 
American Colonys. 

As it is a Subject in which every Colony is deeply interested 
they have no reason to doubt but your Assembly is deeply im- 
pressed with its Importance & that such constitutional measures 
will be come into as are proper. It seems to be necessary, that 
all possible Care should be taken, that the Representations of 
the several Assembly upon so delicate a point, should harmonize 
with each other : the House therefore hope that this letter will 
be candidly considered in no other Light than as expressing a 
Disposition freely to communicate their mind to a Sister Colony, 
upon a common Concern, in the same manner as they would 
be glad to receive the Sentiments of your or any other House 
of Assembly on the Continent. 

The House have humbly represented to the ministry,^ their 
own Sentiments that His Majestys high Court of Parliament is 
the supreme legislative Power over the whole Empire ; That in 
all free States the Constitution is fixd ; & as the supreme Legis- 
lative derives its Power and Authority from the Constitution, 
it cannot overleap the Bounds of it without destroying its own 
foundation ; That the Constitution ascertains & limits both Sover- 
eignty & allegiance, & therefore His Majestys American Subjects 
who acknowledge themselves bound by the Ties of Allegiance, 
have an equitable Claim to the full enjoym* of the fundamental 
Rules of the British Constitution : That it is an essential unal- 
terable Right in nature, ingrafted into the* British Constitution, 
as a fundamental Law & ever held sacred & irrevocable by 
the Subjects within the Realm, that what a man has honestly 

1 Letters had been addressed, chiefly by Adams, to Lord Shelburne, 
January 15; to the Marquis of Rockingham, January 22; to the Lord 
Chancellor Camden, January 29 ; to Pitt, Earl of Chatham, February 2; 
and a petition had been sent to the King, January 20, 1768. 



122 The Separation of the Colonies from England 

acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, 
but cannot be taken from him without his consent: That the 
American Subjects may therefore exclusive of any Consider- 
ation of Charter Rights, with a decent firmness adapted to the 
Character of free men & Subjects assert this natural and con- 
stitutional Right. 

It is moreover their humble opinion, which they express with 
the greatest Deferrence to the Wisdom of the Parliament that 
the Acts made there imposing Duties on the People of this 
province with the sole & express purpose of raising a Revenue, 
are Infringements of their natural & constitutional Rights, be- 
cause as they are not represented in the British Parliam' His 
Majestys Commons in Britain by those Acts grant their Property 
without their consent. 

This House further are of Opinion that their Constituents 
considering their local Circumstances cannot by any possibility 
be represented in the Parliament, & that it will forever be 
impracticable that they should be equally represented there «S^ 
consequently not at all ; being separated by an Ocean of a 
thousand leagues ; and that His Majestys Royal Predecessors 
for this reason were graciously pleased to form a subordinate 
legislature here that their Subjects might enjoy the unalienable 
Right of a Representation. . . . 

Upon these principles . . . this House have preferred a humble 
dutifull & loyal Petition to our most gracious Sovereign, & made 
such Representation to his Majestys Ministers, as they appre- 
hended w^ tend to obtain redress. 

They have also submitted to Consideration whether any 
People can be said to enjoy any degree of Freedom if the 
Crown, in addition to its undoubted Authority of constituting 
a Gov*, should also appoint him such a Stipend as it may judge 
proper without the Consent of the people & at their Expence. . . . 

These are the Sentiments & proceedings of this House ; & 
as they have too much reason to believe that the Enemys of 
the Colonys have represented them to His Majestys Ministers 
& the pari* as factions disloyal & having a disposition to make 
themselves independent of the Mother Country, they have taken 
occasion in the most humble terms to assure His Majesty & his 



I 



BritisJi Rule in America 123 

ministers that with regard to the People of this province & as 
they doubt not of all the colonies the charge is unjust. 

The House is fully satisfyd that your Assembly is too gen- 
erous and enlarged in sentiment, to believe, that this Letter 
proceeds from an Ambition of taking the Lead or dictating to 
the other Assemblys : They freely submit their opinions to the 
Judgment of others, & shall take it kind in your house to point 
out to them anything further which may be thought necessary. 

This House cannot conclude without expressing their firm 
Confidence in the King our common head & Father, that the 
united & dutifull Supplications of his distressed American Sub- 
jects will meet with his royal & favorable Acceptance. 

The response of the other colonies to the Massachusetts 
letter was prompt and cordial. The Virginia burgesses 
replied May 9, applauding the representatives of Massa- 
chusetts '' for their attention to American liberty." On 
the same date the representatives of New Jersey ac- 
knowledged themselves "obliged" to Massachusetts and 
expressed themselves as ' ' desirous to keep up a corre- 
spondence " on the subject. Connecticut, in replying on 
June 1 1, declared that '' no constitutional measures proper 
for obtaining relief ought to be neglected by any," and 
that it was '' important that their measures for that end 
should harmonize with each other, as their success may 
in great degree depend on their union in sentiment and 
practice, on this critical and interesting occasion." 1 In 
addition to the colonies mentioned, New Hampshire, 
Georgia, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Maryland 
replied — eight colonies out of twelve. Lord Hillsborough, 
who in January 1768 had been appointed to the newly 
created office of Secretary of State for the Colonies, and 

1 The replies of the various assemblies may be found in John Almon, 
Prior Documents, London, 1777, pp. 213-219. 



124 T^^^^ Separation of the Colonies fi'om England 

whose character FrankHn summed up as " conceit, wrong- 
headedness, obstinacy, and passion," wrote Governor Ber- 
nard the following instructions relative to the letter sent 
out by the Massachusetts legislature : 

Whitehall, April 22^, 1768 

It gives great concern to his Majesty to find that the same 
moderation which appeared by your letter to have been adopted 
at the beginning of the session in a full assembly, had not con- 
tinued, and that, instead of that spirit of prudence and respect 
to the constitution, which seemed at that time to influence the 
conduct of a large majority of the members, a thin house at 
the end of the session should have presumed to revert to, and 
resolve upon a measure of so inflammatory a nature as that of 
writing to the other colonies on the subject of their intended 
representations against some late acts of parliament. 

His Majesty considers this step as evidently tending to create 
unwarrantable combinations, to excite an unjustifiable opposition, 
to the constitutional authority of Parliament, and to revive those 
unhappy divisions and distractions which have operated so preju- 
dicially to the true interests of Great Britain and the colonies. 

After what passed in the former part of the session ... his 
Majesty cannot but consider this as a very unfair proceeding, 
and the resolutions taken thereupon to be contrary to the real 
sense of the assembly, and procured by surprize : and therefore 
it is the King's pleasure that so soon as the General Court is 
again assembled at the time prescribed by the charter, you should 
require of the House of Representatives in his Majesty's name, 
to rescind the resolution which gave birth to the circular letter 
from the Speaker, and to declare their disapprobation of, and 
their dissent to that rash and hasty proceeding. 

His Majesty has the fullest reliance upon the affection of his 
good subjects in the Massachusetts Bay, and has observed, with 
satisfaction, that spirit of decency, and love of order, which has 
discovered itself in the conduct of the most considerable of its 
inhabitants ; and therefore his Majesty has the better ground 
to hope, that the attempts made by a desperate faction to disturb 



British Rule in America 125 

the public tranquillity, will be discountenanced, and that the 
execution of the measure recommended to you will not meet 
with any difficulty. 

If it should, and if, notwithstanding the apprehensions which 
may justly be entertained of the ill consequence of the continu- 
ance of this factious spirit, which seems to have influenced the 
resolutions of the assembly at the conclusion of the last session, 
the new assembly should refuse to comply with his Majesty's 
reasonable expectation, it is the King's pleasure that you should 
immediately dissolve them, and transmit to me, to be laid before 
his Majesty, an account of their proceedings thereupon, to the 
end that his Majesty may, if he thinks fit, lay the whole matter 
before his Parliament, that such provisions as shall be found 
necessary may be made, to prevent for the future a conduct of 
extraordinary and unconstitutional a nature. 

As it is not his Majesty's intention that a faithful discharge 
of your duty should operate to your own prejudice, or to the 
discontinuance of any necessary establishments, proper care will 
be taken for the support of the dignity of government. 

I am, with great truth and regard. 

Sir, your most obedient 

humble servant 
Hillsborough 

Among the more moderate American patriots, who 33. The con- 
wanted reform of abuses but abhorred the thought of sepa- ^^^g^ strfngs 
ration from England, none was more influential with the M22] 
pen than John Dickinson,^ a prominent lawyer of Pennsyl- 
vania and Delaware. In his *' Letters from a Farmer in 

1 Dickinson earned the title of " the Penman of the Revolution." He 
wrote the Declaration of Rights (the protest of the Stamp Act Con- 
gress, 1765), the Petition of the First Continental Congress to the King 
(1774), the Address of the same Congress to the Inhabitants of Quebec 
(1774), the Declaration on the Colonists taking Arms, and the Final Peti- 
tion to the King (1775). He also drafted the Articles of Confederation, 
which were the first Constitution of the United States (i 781-1789). 
Dickinson lost his seat in the Continental Congress, and much of his 
popularity, by voting against independence in 1776. 



126 TJie Separation of the Colonies from England 

Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies," 
(1768) he protested hotly against the Townshend Acts. 
The ninth letter reads in part : 

My dear Countrymen 

I have made some observations on the purposes for which 
money is to be levied upon us by the late act of parliament. 
I shall now offer to your consideration some further reflec- 
tions on that subject : And, unless I am greatly mistaken, 
if these purposes are accomplished according to the expressed 
intention of the act, they will be found effectually to super- 
sede that authority in our respective assemblies, which is es- 
sential to liberty. The question is not whether some branches 
be lopt off — The axe is laid to the root of the tree ; and the 
whole body must infallibly perish, if we remain idle spectators 
of the work. 

No free people ever existed, or ever can exist, without keeping, 
to use a common but strong expression, '^ the purse strings " in 
their own hands. Where this is the case, they have a constitu- 
tional check upon the administration, which may thereby be 
brought into order without violence : But where such power is 
not lodged in the people, oppression proceeds uncontrouled in 
its career, till the governed, transported into rage, seek redress 
in the midst of blood and confusion. . . . 

If money be raised upon us by others, without our consent, 
for our " defence," those who are the judges in levying it must 
also be the judges in applying it. Of consequence, the money 
said to be taken from us for our defence, may he employed to our 
injury. We may be chained in by a line of fortifications — obliged 
to pay for the building and maintaining them — and be told, that 
they are for our defence. With what face can we dispute the 
fact, after having granted that those who. apply the money had 
a right to levy it ? . . . Besides, the right of levying is of infinitely 
more consequence, than that of applying. The people of England, 
who would burst out into fury, if the crown should attempt to 
levy money by its own authority, have always assigned to the 
crown the application of money. . . . 



\ 



British Rule in America 127 

The declared intention of the act [of 1767] is '' that a revenue 
should be raised in his Majesty's Dominions in America, for 
making a more certain and adequate provision for defraying the 
charges of the Administration of Justice, and the support of civil 
government in such provinces where it shall be found necessary, 
and towards further defraying the expences of defending, protect- 
ing and securing the said dominions." 

Let the reader pause here one moment — and reflect — whether 
the colony in which he lives, has not made such '' certain and 
adequate provision ^' for these purposes as is by the colony judged 
suitable to its abilities, and all other circumstances. — Then, let 
him reflect — whether if this act takes place, money is not to be 
raised on that colony without its consent, to make "provision" 
for those purposes, which it does not judge to be suitable to its 
abilities, and all other circumstances. Lastly, let him reflect — 
whether the people of that country are not in a state of the most 
abject slavery, whose property may be taken from them under 
the notion of right, ivhen they have refused to give it. 

For my part, I think I have good reason for vindicating the 
honor of the assemblies on this continent, by publicly asserting, 
that they have made as " certain and adequate provision '^ for the 
purposes above 7nentio?ied, as they ought to have made, and that it 
should not be presumed, that they will not do it hereafter. Why 
then should these most impoiiant trusts be wrested out of their 
hands ? Why should they not now be permitted to enjoy that 
authority, which they have exercised from the first settlement of 
these colonies ? Why should they be scandalized by this innova- 
tion, when their respective provinces are now, and will be for 
several years, laboring under loads of debt, imposed on them 
for the very purpose now spoken of ? . . . Is it possible to form 
an idea of slavery more complete, more miserable, more disgrace- 
ful, than that of a people, where justice is administered, govern- 
ment exercised, and a standing army maintained, at the expence 
of the people, and yet without the least depe^idence upon the?n ? If 
we can find no relief from this infamous situation, let Mr. Grenville 
set his fertile fancy again at work, and as by one exertion of it 
he has stript us of our property and liberty, let him by another 



128 TJie Separation of the Colonies from England 

deprive us of our understanding ; that unconscious of what we 
have been or are, and ungoaded by tormenting reflections, we may- 
bow down our necks, with all the stupid serenity of servitude, 
to any drudgery, which our lords and masters shall please to 

command. . . . 

Vefuenti ocacrnte morbo 

Oppose disease at its beginning 

A Farmer 

The Punishment of Massachusetts 

34. Conflict- The news of the battle of Lexington reached England, 
of^the^con- ^^ General Gage's despatches, June 9, 1775, and the 
flict at Lex- official account of the fis^ht was forthwith published in 

ington, ^ ^ ^ 

April 19, 1775 the London Gazette. ''From the praises bestowed upon 
[124] officers and men for their activity and bravery," says 
Dr. Gordon, "it is evident that the Americans made the 
business of the day a hard, difficult, and dangerous serv- 
ice."^ The following account of the battle hangs framed 
in the Hancock-Clark House, and is reprinted here by 
courtesy of the Lexington Historical Society. 

A CIRCUMSTANTIAL ACCOUNT OF AN ATTACK THAT 
HAPPENED ON THE 19TH OF APRIL 1775, ON HIS MAJ- 
ESTY'S TROOPS, BY A NUMBER OF THE PEOPLE OF THE 
PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS-BAY 

On Tuesday the i8''' of April, about half past 10 at Night, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Smith of the 10*'' Regiment, embarked from 
the Common at Boston, with the Grenadiers and Light Infantry 
of the Troops there, and landed on the opposite side, from 
whence he began his March towards Concord, where he was 
ordered to destroy a magazine of military stores, deposited there 
for the Use of an Army to be assembled, in Order to act 
against his Majesty, and his Government. The Colonel called 

1 Reverend William Gordon, D.D., The History of the American 
Revolution, London, 1788, Vol. I, p. 503. 



BritisJi Ride in America 129 

his Officers together and gave Orders that the Troops should 
not fire unless fired upon ; and after marching a few miles, de- 
tached six Companies of Light Infantry under the command 
of Major Pitcairn, to take Possession of two Bridges on the 
other side of Concord. Soon after they heard many signal 
Guns, and the ringing of alarm Bells repeatedly, which con- 
vinced them that the Country was rising to oppose them, and 
that it was a preconcerted Scheme to oppose the King's Troops, 
whenever there should be a favorable Opportunity for it. About 
3 o'clock the next Morning, the Troops being advanced within 
two Miles of Lexington, Intelligence was received that about 
Five Hundred Men in Arms, were assembled, and determined 
to oppose the King's Troops* ; [*At this time advanced Light 
Companies loaded, but the Grenadiers were not loaded when 
they received their first Fire] and on Major Pitcairn's gal- 
loping up to the head of the advanced Companies, two Offi- 
cers informed him that a Man (advanced from those that 
were assembled) had presented his musquit [musket] and 
attempted to shoot them, but the Piece flashed in the Pan. 
On this the Major gave directions to the Troops to move 
forward, but on no Account to fire, nor even to attempt it 
without Orders. When they arrived at the End of the Village, 
they observed about 200^ armed Men, drawn up on a Green, 
and when the Troops came within a Hundred Yards of them, 
they began to file off towards some Stone Walls, on their right 
Flank : the Light Infantry observing this, ran after them ; the 

1 This is a gross exaggeration. The Salem Gazette of Friday, April 21, 
1775, under the caption "Bloody Butchery by the British Troops, or 
the Runaway Fight of the Regulars," says : '' At sunrise they observed 
between 30 and 40 inhabitants exercising near the Meeting-House. 
The Commanding Officer ordered them to lay down their arms and 
disperse, which not being directly complied with he demanded them 
for a pack of rebels, ordered his men to fire upon them, and killed 
eight men on the spot, besides wounding several more." That there 
were men in England who believed the colonial report of the " bloody 
butchery" is shown by the fact that Home Tooke was fined ;i^iooo in 
1777 for collecting and transmitting to Franklin a fund to relieve the 
widows and orphans of those "who faithful to the character of English- 
men, preferring death to slavery, were inhumanly murdered by the 
King's troops at or near Lexington and Concord." 



130 TJie Sepai'ation of the Colojiics from England 

Major instantly called to the Soldiers not to fire, but to surround 
and disarm them ; some of them, who had jumped over a wall, 
then fired four or five shot at the Troops, wounded a man of 
the lo'*" Regiment, and the Major's Horse in two Places, and 
at the same Time several Shots were fired from a Meeting- 
House on the left : Upon this, without any Order or Regularity, 
the Light Infantry began a scattered Fire, and killed several of 
the Countr}^ People ; but were silenced as soon as the Authority 
of their OfBcers could make them.* [* Notwithstanding the Fire 
from the Meeting-House, Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, with 
the greatest Difficulty, kept the Soldiers from forcing into the 
Meeting-House and putting all there in it to Death]. . . . 

Far different is the account in the original dispatch 

of the news of the battle of Lexington, sent by express 

riders from Watertown, Massachusetts, a few^ hours after 

the battle, and attested by patriotic committees in all the 

towns through which it passed to reach Philadelphia, 

April 24. 

Watertown 

Wednesday morning, near 10 of the clock 

To all friends of American liberty be it known that this 
Morning, before break of day, a brigade consisting of about 
1000 or 1200 men, landed at Phip's farm at Cambridge, and 
marched to Lexington, where they found a company of our 
colony militia in arms, upon whom they fired without any prov- 
ocation, and killed six men, and wounded four others. By an 
express from Boston, we find another bridage [brigade] are 
now upon their march from Boston, supposed to be about 
1000. The bearer. Trail Bissel, is charged to alarm the country 
quite to Connecticut, and all persons are desired to furnish him 
with fresh horses as they may be needed. I have spoken with 
several who have seen the dead and wounded. Pray let the 
Delegates from this Colony to Connecticut see this, they know 
Colonel Foster, of Brookfield, one of the Delegates. 
J. Palmer 
One of the Company of S.Y. [Safety] 



British Rule in Avierica 131 

Anxious to prove that the British and not the Colonials 
fired the shot at Lexington which opened the Revolutionary 
War, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts ordered 
many of the men who had taken part in the events of 
April 19 to tell their story under oath. A set of these 
depositions was sent to Benjamin Franklin, the Massa- 
chusetts agent in London, to be published. The letter to 
Franklin and the deposition of Captain John Parker, who 
commanded the Lexington Minutemen, follow : 

In Provincial Congress, Watertown 

April 26, 1775 
To the Hon. Benjamin Franklin, Esq., London : 

Sir : From the entire confidence we repose in your faithful- 
ness and abilities, we consider it the happiness of this Colony 
that the important trust of agency for it, on this day of unequalled 
distress, is devolved on your hands ; and we doubt not your 
attachment to the cause of the liberties of mankind will make 
every possible exertion in our behalf a pleasure to you, although 
our circumstances will compel us often to interrupt your repose 
by matters that will surely give you pain. A single instance 
hereof is the occasion of the present letter; the contents of 
this packet will be our apology for troubling you with it. From 
these you will see how and by whom we are at last plunged 
into the horrours of a most unnatural war. Our enemies, we 
are told, have despatched to Great Britain a fallacious account 
of the tragedy they have begun ; to prevent the operation of 
which to the publick injury, we have engaged the vessel that 
conveys this to you as a packet in the service of this Colony, 
and we request your assistance in supplying Captain Derby, 
who commands her, with such necessaries as he shall want, on 
the credit of your Constituents in Massachusetts-Bay. But we 
most ardently wish that the several papers herewith enclosed 
may be immediately printed and dispersed through every Town 
in England, and especially communicated to the Lord Mayor, 
Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London, that 
they may take such order thereon as they may think proper; 



132 TJie Separation of the Colo7iies from England 

and we are confident your fidelity will make such improvement 
of them as shall convince all who are not determined to be in 
everlasting blindness, that it is the united efforts of both Englands 
that must save either. But that whatever price our bretheren 
in the one may be pleased to put on their constitutional liberties, 
we are authorized to assure you that the inhabitants of the other, 
with the greatest unanimity, are inflexibly resolved to sell theirs 
only at the price of their lives. Signed by order of the Provin- 
cial Congress : ^ „, -r^ • , 

Jos. Warren, President pro tern. 

Lexington, April 25, 1775 

I, John Parker, of lawful age, and Commander of the Militia 
in Lexington, do testify and declare that on the nineteenth in- 
stant, in the morning, about one of the clock, being informed 
that there were a number of Regular Officers riding up and 
down the road, stopping and insulting people as they passed 
the road, and also was informed that a number of Regular 
Troops were on their march from Bosto7i, in order to take the 
Province Stores at Concord, ordered our Militia to meet on th^ 
common in said Lexmgton, to consult what to do, and concluded 
not to be discovered, nor meddle or make with said Regular 
Troops (if they should approach) unless they should insult us ; 
and upon their sudden approach, I immediately ordered our 
Militia to disperse and not to fire. Immediately said Troops 
made their appearance and rushed furiously, fired upon and 
killed eight of our party, without receiving any provocation 

therefor from us. 

John Parker 

(Attested by Justices of the Peace of Middlesex County) 



I 



CHAPTER V 

THE BIRTH OF THE NATION 

The Declaration of Independence 

Ten weeks after the affray on Lexington green, and on 35. The final 
the very day that George Washington, as commander in ^o K^i^n'^ 



July 8, 1775 
[129] 



chief, was reviewing the continental army at Cambridge George iii, 
(Ji-ity 3j 1775) the more conservative members of the 
Continental Congress, who still hoped for reconciliation 
with England, secured the appointment of a committee 
to draw up a final petition to the king.^ John Dickinson 
(see No. 33, p. 125) wrote the petition, which was signed 
July 8 — two days after the Congress had voted the reso- 
lution justifying armed resistance to Great Britain — and 
sent by Richard Penn to be laid before George III. But 
this ''olive branch" petition had no better fate than all the 
preceding appeals to the king's officers, since the first pro- 
test against Grenville's proposed Stamp Act was denounced 
by the Lords of Trade as showing a " most indecent dis- 
respect " to Parliament. King George's proclamation of 

1 Dickinson, John Jay, and James Wilson were leading conservatives 
in the Continental Congress, opposed to the Adamses, Patrick Henry, 
Jefferson, and Christopher Gadsden. One radical writer, Delaney, com- 
plained that Dickinson and Jay compelled Congress again " to whine 
in the Style of humble petitioners to the king." Jefferson said : " Con- 
gress gave a signal proof of their indulgence to Mr. Dickinson, and of 
their great desire not to go too fast for any respectable part of our body, 
in permitting him to draw their second petition to the King according to 
his own ideas, and passing it with scarcely any amendment." — " Auto- 
biography," in Jefferson's Works, ed. P. L. Ford, Vol. I, p. 17. 

133 



134 The Separatio7t of the Colonies from E?iglaiid 

the rebellion of the American colonies ^ was issued on the 
day set for the presentation of the petition. ^ 

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY 

Most gracious sovereigfi, 

We, your Majesty's faithful subjects of the colonies of New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts bay, etc. ... in behalf of ourselves, 
and the inhabitants of these colonies, who have deputed us to 
represent them in general Congress, entreat your Majesty's 
gracious attention to this our humble petition. 

The union between our Mother country and these colonies, 
and the energy of mild and just government, produced benefits 
so remarkably important, and afforded such an assurance of their 
permanency and increase, that the wonder and envy of other 
Nations were excited, while they beheld Great Britain riseing to 
a power the most extraordinary the world had ever known. 

Her rivals, observing that there was no probability of this 
happy connexion being broken by civil dissensions, and appre- 
hending its future effects, if left any longer undisturbed, re- 
solved to prevent her receiving such continual and formidable 
accessions of wealth and strength, by checking the growth of 
these settlements from which they were to be derived. 

In the prosecution of this attempt, events so unfavourable to 
the design took place, that every friend to the interests of Great 
Britain and these colonies, entertained pleasing and reasonable 
expectations of seeing an additional force and extention immedi- 
ately given to the operations of the union hitherto experienced, 
by an enlargement of the dominions of the Crown and the re- 
moval of ancient and warlike enemies to a greater distance. 

1 See facsimile of the proclamation in Muzzey, An American History, 
p. 131. 

2 Though the king refused audience to the bearers of the " olive 
branch" petition, it was laid before the House of Lords on November 7, 
where the motion that it offered a basis for reconciliation was rejected 
by a vote of 83 to 33. A week later a proposal for conciliation submitted 
by Edmund Burke to the House of Commons was rejected by a vote of 
210 to 105. King and Parliament were therefore committed to the prose- 
cution of war in America before the end of the year 1775. 



The Birth of the Natioji 135 

At the conclusion, therefore, of the late war [with the French, 
175 4- 1763], the most glorious and advantageous that had ever 
been carried on by British arms, your loyal colonists having con- 
tributed to its success, by such repeated and strenuous exertions, 
as frequently procured them the distinguished approbation of 
your Majesty, of the late king [George II, died 1760], and of 
parliament, doubted not but that they should be permitted, with 
the rest of the empire, to share in the blessings of peace and in 
the emoluments of victory and conquest. While these recent 
and honorable acknowledgments of their merits remained on 
record in the journals and acts of that august legislature, the 
Parliament, undefaced by the imputation or even the suspicion 
of any offence, they were alarmed by a new system of statutes 
and regulations adopted for the administration of the colonies, 
that filled their minds with the most painful fears and jealousies; 
and, to their inexpressible astonishment, perceived the dangers 
of a foreign quarrel quickly succeeded by domestic dangers, in 
their judgment, of a more dreadful kind. 

Nor were their anxieties alleviated by any tendency in this 
system to promote the welfare of the Mother country. For 
tho' its effects were more immediately felt by them, yet its in- 
fluence appeared to be injurious to the commerce and pros- 
perity of Great Britain. 

We shall decline the ungrateful task of describing the irksome 
variety of artifices practised by many of your Majesty's Min- 
isters, the delusive pretences, fruitless terrors, and unavailing 
severities, that have, from time to time, been dealt out by them, 
in their attempts to execute this impolitic plan, or of tracing, 
thro' a series of years past, the progress of the unhappy dif- 
ferences between Great Britain and these colonies, which have 
flowed from this fatal source. Your Majesty's Ministers, perse- 
vering in their measures, and proceeding to open hostilities for 
enforcing them, have compelled us to arm in our own defence, 
and have engaged us in a controversy, so peculiarly abhorrent 
to the affections of your still faithful colonists, that when we 
consider whom we must oppose in this contest, and if it con- 
tinues, what may be the consequences, our own particular 
misfortunes are accounted by us only as parts of our distress. 



136 The Separation of the Colonies from England 

Knowing to what violent resentments and incurable animosi- 
ties civil discords are apt to exasperate and inflame the con- 
tending parties, we think ourselves required by indispensable 
obligations to Almighty God, to your Majesty, to our fellow 
subjects, and to ourselves, immediately to use all the means in 
our power, not incompatible with our safety, for stopping the 
further effusion of blood, and for averting the impending calam- 
ities that threaten the British Empire. 

Thus called upon to address your Majesty on affairs of such 
moment to America, and probably to all your dominions, we 
are earnestly desirous of performing this office, with the utmost 
deference for your Majesty ; and we therefore pray that your 
royal magnanimity and benevolence may make the most favor- 
able construction of our expressions on so uncommon an occa- 
sion. Could we represent in their full force, the sentiments that 
agitate the minds of us your dutiful subjects, we are persuaded 
your Majesty would ascribe any seeming deviation from rever- 
ence in our language, and even in our conduct, not to any 
reprehensible intention, but to the impossibility of reconciling 
the usual appearances of respect, with a just attention to our 
own preservation against those artful and cruel enemies, who 
abuse your royal confidence and authority, for the purpose of 
effecting our destruction. 

Attached to your Majesty's person, family, and government, 
with all devotion that principle and affection can inspire, con- 
nected with Great Britain by the strongest ties that can unite 
societies, and deploring every event that tends in any degree to 
weaken them, we solemnly assure your Majesty, that we not 
only most ardently desire the former harmony between her and 
these colonies may be restored, but that a concord may be es- 
tablished between them upon so firm a basis as to perpetuate its 
blessings, uninterrupted by any future dissentions, to succeeding 
generations in both countries, and to transmit your Majesty's 
Name to posterity, adorned with that signal and lasting glory, 
that has attended the memory of those illustrious personages, 
whose virtues and abilities have extricated states from dangerous 
convulsions, and, by securing happiness to others, have erected 
the most noble and durable monuments to their own fame. 



I 



TJie Birth of the Nation 137 

We beg leave further to assure your Majesty, that notwith- 
standing the sufferings of your loyal colonists, during the course 
of the present controversy, our breasts retain too tender a regard 
for the kingdom from which we derive our origin, to request 
such a reconciliation as might, in any manner, be inconsistent 
with her dignity or her welfare. . . ; and the apprehensions that 
now oppress our hearts with unspeakable grief, being once 
removed, your Majesty will find your faithful subjects on this 
continent ready and willing at all times, as they have ever been, 
with their lives and fortunes, to assert and maintain the rights 
and interests of your Majesty, and of our Mother country. 

We. therefore, beseech your Majesty, that your royal authority 
and influence may be graciously interposed to procure us relief 
from our afflicting fears and jealousies, occasioned by the system 
before mentioned, with all humility submitting to your Majesty's 
wise consideration whether it may not be expedient for facilitat- 
ing those important purposes, that your Majesty be pleased to 
direct some mode, by which the united applications of your faith- 
ful colonists to the throne, in pursuance of their common councils, 
may be improved into a happy and permanent reconciliation ; 
and that, in the mean time, measures may be taken for prevent- 
ing the further destruction of the lives of your Majesty's subjects ; 
and that such statutes as more immediately distress any of your 
Majesty's colonies may be repealed. 

For by such arrangements as your Majesty's wisdom can 
form, for collecting the united sense of your American people, 
we are convinced your Majesty would receive such satisfactory 
proofs of the disposition of the colonists towards their sovereign 
and parent state, that the wished for opportunity would soon be 
restored to them, of evincing the sincerity of their professions, 
by every testimony of devotion becoming the most dutiful subjects 
and the most affectionate colonists. 

That your Majesty may enjoy a long and prosperous reign, 
and that your descendants may govern your dominions with 
honor to themselves and happiness to their subjects, is our 
sincere and fervent prayer. 

John Hancock [President] 
[and forty eight members of the Congress] 



138 The Separatioji of the Colonies from E^igland 

36. Thomas Nothing could be more inconsistent than the conduct 
me^nt^for^n-' ^^ ^^ colonists during the entire year 1775 : hurHng de- 
dependence, fiance at Great Britain and protesting loyalty to George III ; 
1776 ' besieging the royal governor in Boston with troops, and 

[132] the royal ear in Britain with petitions. On the same day 
(June 25, 1775) George Washington passed through the 
city of New York on his way to take command of the con- 
tinental troops at Cambridge, and William Tryon, King 
George's governor, landed at the Battery. The militia of 
New York, with apparently equal enthusiasm, served as 
escort through the city, first to the rebel general, then to the 
royal governor. The first clear call to the American colonies 
to abandon this equivocal position and declare independ- 
ence of Great Britain without reservations, apologies, 
or regrets, was Thomas Paine's ''Common Sense," ''a 
pamphlet," says Conway,^ "whose effect has never been 
paralleled in literary history." After discussing the origin 
and design of government in general, and of Great Britain's 
hereditary monarchy in particular, Paine comes to the 
American situation. 

1 M. U. Conway, Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I, p. 67 n. There 
had been speculation before as to the probable eventual separation of 
the colonies from England (see No. 30, pp. 112 ff.) and general proph- 
ecies, like that of Turgot's, that colonies were like fruits, which would 
drop from the tree when ripe. Also thwarted royal governors or irate 
councilors had been quick to accuse the colonists of striving for " inde- 
pendency." But unless the real feelings of the leading men in America 
were disguised or hidden, John Adams must have been looking back 
on events through the coloring medium of the Revolution when he 
wrote in 1807 that "the necessity of [American independence] some 
time or other, was always familiar to gentlemen of reflection in all parts 
of America" (Works, ed. C. F. Adams, Vol. IX, p. 561). In November, 
1775, Congress recommended to New Hampshire the establishment of 
an independent government only " during the continuance of the present 
dispute between Great Britain and the colonies " (Journals of the Con- 
tinental Congress, ed. W. C. Ford, Vol. Ill, p. 319). 



The Birth of the Nation 1 39 

Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle 
between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked 
in the controversy, from different motives and with various de- 
signs : but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate 
is closed. Arms as the last resort decide the contest ; the appeal 
was the choice of the King, and the Continent has accepted the 
challenge. 

The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not 
the affair of a City, a County, a Province, or a Kingdom ; but 
of a Continent — of at least one eighth part of the habitable 
Globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age ; pos- 
terity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or 
less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. 
Now is the seed-time of Continental union, faith and honour. 
The least fracture now would be like a name engraved with the 
point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak ; the wound 
would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full-grown 
characters. 

By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new era for 
politics is struck — a new method of thinking hath arisen. All 
plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e. to the 
commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last 
year; which, tho' proper then, are superceded and useless now 

I have heard it asserted by some, that as America has flourished 
under her former connection with Great-Britain, the same con- 
nection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always 
have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this 
kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child 
has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat. ... I 
answer roundly that America would have flourished as much, 
and probably more, had no European power taken any notice 
of her. The commerce by which she hath enriched herself are 
the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while 
eating is the custom of Europe. 

But she has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed 
us is true, and defended the Continent at our expence as well 
as her own, is admitted ; and she would have defended Turkey 
from the same motive, viz., for the sake of trade and dominion. 



140 The Separation of the Colo7iies from Ejigland 

Alas ! we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, 
and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the 
protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her motive 
was interest not attachment; and that she did not protect us 
from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her 
own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any 
other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same 
accotmt. Let Britain waive her pretensions to the Continent 
[America], or the Continent throw off the dependance, and we 
should be at peace with France and Spain, were they at war 
with Britain. . . . France and Spain never were, nor perhaps 
ever will be, our enemies as Americans, but only as our being 
the subjects of Great Britain} . . . 

I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show 
a single advantage that this continent can reap by being con- 
nected with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge ; not a single 
advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market 
in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them 
where we will. 

But the injuries and disadvantages which we sustain by that 
connection are without number ; and our duty to mankind at 
large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance. 
. . . Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at 
peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and 
any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because 
of her connection with Great Britain. . . . Everything that is right 
or reasonable pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the 
weeping voice of nature cries, 'Tis time to part. . . . For as 
Milton wisely expresses, " never can true reconcilement grow 
where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep." .... 

As to government matters, 'tis not in the power of Great 
Britain to do this continent justice : the business of it will soon 
be too weighty and intricate to be managed with any tolerable 
degree of convenience, by a power so distant from us, and so 
very ignorant of us ; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot 

1 Here is the germ of the American doctrine of the undesirabihty of 
entanghng foreign alliances, as developed in Washington's Farewell 
Address of 1796 and the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. 



The Birth of the Nation 141 

govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles 
with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an 
answer, which, when obtained, requires five or six more to 
explain it in, will in a few years be looked on as folly and 
childishness. There was a time when it was proper, and there 
is a proper time for it to cease. . . . 

To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids 
us to have faith, and our affections, wounded through a thousand 
pores, instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day 
wears out the litde remains of kindred between us and them ; 
and can there be any reason to hope, that as the relationship 
expires, the affection will encrease, or that we shall agree better 
when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel 
over than ever ? 

Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore 
to us the time that is past .? . . . The last cord now is broken, 
the people of England are presenting addresses against us. 
There are injuries which nature cannot forgive : she would 
cease to be nature if she did. . . . The social compact would 
dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have 
only a casual existence were we callous to the touches of 
affection. . . . 

O ! ye that love mankind ! Ye that dare oppose not only the 
tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth ! Every spot of the old 
world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted 
round the Globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. 
Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given 
her warning to depart. O ! receive the fugitive, and prepare 
in time an asylum for mankind ! 



' Comparatively few people of the present generation," 37. The 

French 
alliance 



says Mr. Charlemagne Tower, Jr., in his work on '' The ^^^^^^ 



Marquis de Lafayette in the American Revolution " (p. iv), M39] 
'' are aware of the inestimable benefits which the French 
nation conferred upon our forefathers during the American 
Revolution, at a time when America was without credit 
abroad and when our cause aroused no other national 



142 The Separatioji of the Colonies from England 

sympathy in the world than that of our faithful ally. France 
had her grievances against Great Britain as well as we, it 
is true. . . . But for us Americans the essential facts to be 
remembered in connection with the alliance are that we 
went of our own accord to ask France for help ^ and that 
we received it of her." In the summer of 1777 the young 
Marquis de Lafayette came to America, fortified by a 
letter of introduction to Congress from Franklin and 
Deane, to offer his services to the patriot cause. On 
July 31, 1777, Congress passed the following resolution : 

Whereas the Marquis de Lafayette, out of his great zeal to 
the cause of liberty, in which the United States are engaged, 
has left his family and connections, and at his own expence 
come over to offer his services to the United States without 
pension or particular allowance, and is anxious to risque his life 
in our cause — Resolved that his service be accepted, and that 
in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connections he 
have rank and commission of Major General in the Army of 
the United States. 

Lafayette replied in the following letter, the original of 
which is in the Archives of the State Department at 
Washington : ^ • 

the 13 august 1777 
Sir 

I beg that you will receive yourself and present to Congress 
my thanks for the Commission of Major General in the Army 
of the United States of America which I have been honor'd 
with in their name the feelings of my heart, long before it be- 
came my duty, engaged me in the love of the American cause. 

1 See the facsimile of Franklin's letter to the French minister 
Vergennes, asking for an alliance — our first diplomatic correspondence 
— in Muzzey, An American History, p. 139. 

- Mr. Charlemagne Tower, Jr., has published a facsimile of this 
quaint letter in " The Marquis de Lafayette in the American Revolu- 
tion," p. 184. 



The Birth of the Nation 143 

I not only consider'd it as the cause of Honor, Virtue, and uni- 
versal Happiness, but felt myself empressed with the warmest 
affection for a nation who exhibited by their resistance so fine 
an exemple of Justice and Courage to the Universe. 

I schall neglect nothing on my part to justify the confidence 
which the Congress of the United States has been pleased to 
repose in me as my highest ambition has ever been to do every- 
thing only for the best of the cause in which I am engaged. I 
wish to serve near the person of General Washington till such 
time as he may think proper to entrust me with a division of 
the Army. 

it is now as an american that I '1 mention every day to con- 
gress the officers who came over with me, whose interests are 
for me as my own, and the consideration which they deserve 
by their merits their ranks, their state and reputation in France. 
I am sir with sentiments which every good american owe to you 
Your most obedient 

servant the mq^^ de lafayette 

to 

the honorable M"" Hankok 

president of Congress 

Philadelphia 

After Burgoyne's surrender the French government 
concluded not only the ''treaty of amity and commerce" 
which the American commissioners had been seeking to 
gain for a year, but also a treaty of defensive alliance, 
February 6, 1778. This was the earliest recognition of 
the United States by a foreign power, and the only treaty 
of alliance we have ever made. The chief articles read 
as follows : 

Article I. If war should break out between France and 
Great Britain during the continuance of the present war be- 
tween the United States and England, his majesty [Louis XVI] 
and the said United States shall make it a common cause, and 
aid each other mutually with their good offices, their counsels. 



1 44 TJie Separation of the Colonies from England 

and their forces, according to the exigence of conjunctures, as 
becomes good and faithful allies. 

Article II. The essential and direct end of the present de- 
fensive alliance is, to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, 
and independence absolute and unlimited of the United States, 
as well in matters of government as of commerce. . . . 

Article V. If the United States should think fit to attempt 
the reduction of the British power remaining in the northern 
parts of America, or in the islands of Bermudas, those countries 
or islands, in case of success, shall be confederated with or 
dependent upon the said United States. 

Article VI. The most christian king renounces forever the 
possession of the islands of Bermudas, as well as of any part 
of the continent of North America which, before the treaty of 
1763, or in virtue of that treaty, were acknowledged to belong 
to the crown of Great Britain, or to the United States, hereto- 
fore called British colonies. . . . 

Article VII. If his most christian majesty shall think proper 
to attack any of the islands situated in the gulf of Mexico, or 
near that gulf, which are at present under the power of Great 
Britain, all the said isles, in case of success, shall appertain to 
the crown of France. 

Article VIII. Neither of the two parties shall conclude either 
truce or peace with Great Britain, without the formal consent 
of the other first obtained ; and they mutually engage not to 
lay down their arms until the independence of the United States 
sliall have been formally, or tacitly, assured by the treaty or 
treaties, that shall terminate the war. 

Article X. The most christian king and the United States 
agree to invite or admit other powers, who may have received 
injuries from England, to make common cause with them, and 
to accede to the present alliance, under such conditions as shall 
be freely agreed to and settled between all the parties. . . . 

Done at Paris, this 6"" day of February, one thousand seven 
hundred and seventy-eight 

C. A. Ge'rard B. Franklin 

Silas Deane 
Arthur Lee 



K 



The Birth of the Nation 1 4 5 

Thursday, August 6, 1778, M. Gerard, the French sig- 
natory of the above treaty, was presented to Congress as 
the first foreign minister accredited to the United States. 
He presented as his credentials the following letter from 
Louis XVI : 

Very dear, great friends and allies : 

The treaties which we have signed with you, in consequence 
of the proposals of your commissioners made to us in your be- 
half, are a certain assurance of our affection for the United 
States in general, and for each of them in particular, as well as 
of the interest we take and constantly shall take in their hap- 
piness and prosperity. It is to convince you more particularly 
of this that we have appointed the Sieur Gerard, Secretary of our 
council of state, to reside among you in the quality of minister 
plenipotentiary. He is the better acquainted with our sentiments 
towards you, and the more capable of testifying the same to you, 
as he was entrusted on our part to negotiate with your commis- 
sioners and signed with them the treaties which cement our 
union. We pray you to give full credit to all he shall communi- 
cate to you from us, more especially when he shall assure you 
of our affection and constant friendship for you. We pray God, 
very dear, great friends and allies, to have you in his holy and 

noble keeping. 

Versailles, 28 March, 1778 

Your good friend and ally 

Louis 
Gravier de Vergennes 

M. Gerard then made a short speech, to which the 
president of the Congress replied as follows : 

Sir : The treaties between his most Christian majesty and 
the United States of America, so fully demonstrate his wisdom 
and magnanimity as to command the reverence of all nations. 
The virtuous citizens of America, in particular, can never forget 
his beneficent attention to their violated rights, nor cease to 
acknowledge the hand of a gracious Providence in raising them 



146 The Separatio7i of the Colonies from England 

up so powerful and illustrious a friend. It is the hope and 
opinion of Congress that the confidence his majesty reposes 
in the firmness of these states, will receive additional strength 
from every day's experience. 

This assembly are convinced, sir, that had it rested solely 
with the most Christian king, not only the independence of 
these states would have been universally acknowledged, but their 
tranquillity fully established. We lament that lust of domination 
which gave birth to the present war, and hath prolonged and 
extended the miseries of mankind. We ardently wish to sheath 
the sword, and spare further effusion of blood ; but we are de- 
termined, by every means in our power, to fulfil those eventual 
engagements which have acquired positive and permanent force 
from the hostile designs and measures of the common enemy. 

Congress have reason to believe that the assistance so wisely 
and generously sent, will bring Great Britain to a sense of 
justice and moderation, promote the interests of France and 
America, and secure peace and tranquillity on the most firm 
and honorable foundation. Neither can it be doubted that those 
who adminster the powers of government within the several 
states of this union will cement that connection with the subjects 
of France, the beneficial effects of which have already been so 
sensibly felt. 

Sir : From the experience we have had of your exertions to 
promote the true interests of our country as well as your own, 
it is with the highest satisfaction Congress receive as the first 
minister from his most Christian majesty, a gentleman whose 
past conduct affords a happy presage, that he will merit the 
confidence of this body, the friendship of its members, and the 
esteem of the citizens of America. 

In Congress, August 6, 1778 Henry Laurens 

President 

France scrupulously fulfilled the treaty. Her aid was 
generous and timely. However, when the " essential and 
direct end" of the alliance, as expressed in Article II, 
was made possible by the surrender of the British Army 



The Birth of the Nation 147 

at Yorktown, it was so manifestly to the advantage of the 
United States to make peace with England, that Franklin 
and his colleagues at Paris began negotiations in spite of 
explicit instructions from Congress to respect Article VIII 
of the treaty. When the French minister Vergennes dis- 
covered this he wrote with pardonable indignation to 
Franklin.^ 

Versailles, December 15, 1782 
Sir, 

... I am at a loss to explain your conduct and that of your 
colleagues on this occasion. You have concluded your prelimi- 
nary articles without any communication between us, although 
the instructions from Congress prescribe, that nothing shall be 
done without the participation of the King. You are about to 
hold out a certain hope of peace to America, without even in- 
forming yourself on the state of the negotiation on our part. 

You are wise and discreet, Sir ; you perfectly understand 
what is due propriety ; you have all your life performed your 
duties. I pray you to consider how you propose to fulfil those, 
which are due to the King ? I am not desirous of enlarging on 
these reflections ; I commit them to your own integrity. When 
you shall be pleased to relieve my uncertainty, I will entreat the 
King to enable me to answer your demands [for money]. I 
have the honor to be, Sir, with sincere regards, &c. 

de Vergennes 

Franklin's reply was a shrewd combination of flattery 
and finesse, by which, sailing dangerously close to sophistry, 
he was nevertheless able to pacify and satisfy Vergennes. 

1 Four days later Vergennes wrote to Luzerne, the French minister in 
America : " If we may judge the future by what has passed here under 
our eyes, we shall be but poorly paid for all we have done for the United 
States, and for securing to them a national existence " (Works of Ben- 
jamin Franklin, ed. Smyth, Vol. X, p. 393). Franklin, Jay, and Adams 
narrowly escaped being recalled in disgrace, on the complaint of Luzerne 
to Congress. 



148 The Separation of the Colonies from England 



Sir, 



Passy, December 17, 1782 



I received the letter your Excellency did me the honor of 
writing to me on the 15'^' instant. . . . Nothing has been agreed 
in the preliminaries contrary to the interests of France ; and no 
peace is to take place between us and England, till you have 
concluded yours. Your observation is, however, apparently just, 
that in not consulting you before they were signed, we have 
been guilty of neglecting a point of bienseance [courtesy]. But 
as this was not from want of respect for the King, whom we 
all love and honor, we hope it will be excused, and that the 
great work, which has hitherto been so happily conducted, is so 
nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his reign, will 
not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours. And certainly 
the whole edifice sinks to the ground immediately, if you refuse 
on that account to give us any further assistance. . . . 

It is not possible for anyone to be more sensible than I am 
of what I and every American owe to the King, for the many 
and great benefits and favors he has bestowed upon us. All 
my letters to America are proofs of this ; all tending to make 
the same impressions on the rhinds of my countrymen, that I 
felt in my own. And I believe, that no Prince was ever more 
beloved and respected by his own subjects, than the King is by 
the people of the United States. The English, I just now learn^ 
flatter themselves they have already divided us. I hope this little 
misunderstanding will therefore be kept a secret, and that they 
will find themselves totally mistaken. With great and sincere 
respect, I am, Sir, &c. ^ Franklin 

The Revolutionary War 



38. George 

Rogers 

Clark's 

capture of 

Vincennes, 

February 24, 

1779 

[148] 



Among the little group of intrepid men who made the 
wonderful midwinter march from the Mississippi to the 
Wabash with George Rogers Clark in 1779, was Captain 
Joseph Bowman, whose journal of the expedition first 
appeared in print in the Louisville Litem?y Neivs of 
November 24, 1840, from an original manuscript in the 



The Birth of the Nation 1 49 

possession of the Kentucky Historical Association. The 
journal covers the period from January 27, when Clark at 
Kaskaskia heard the news of Governor Hamilton's seizure 
of Vincennes, to March 20, when the six boats conveying 
Clark's band and their British captives, "after rejoicing, 
were run out of sight " down the river on their return 
journey to the Mississippi post. 

Jan. 27 [1779]. Mr. Vigo, a Spanish subject, who has been 
at Post -St. Vincent [Vincennes] on his lawful business, arrived 
and gave us intelligence that Governor Hamilton, with thirty 
regulars and fifty volunteers and about four hundred Indians, 
had arrived in November and taken that post, with Captain Helm 
and such other Americans who were there with arms . . . and 
disarmed the settlers and inhabitants, on which Colonel Clark 
called a council of his officers, and it was concluded to go and 
attack Governor Hamilton at St. Vincent. . . . 

Jan. 31st. Sent an express to Cahokia for volunteers and 
other extraordinary things. 

Feb. I St. Orders given for a large batteau [boat] to be re- 
paired and provisions got ready for the expedition concluded on. 

5th. Raised another company of volunteers, under the com- 
mand of Capt. Francis Charleville, which, added to our force, 
increased our number to one hundred and seventy men . . . about 
three o'clock we crossed the Kaskaskia with our baggage, and 
marched about a league from town. Fair and drizzly weather. 
Began our march early. Made a good march for about nine 
hours. The road very bad with mud and water. Pitched our 
camp in a square, baggage in the middle, every company to 
guard their own squares. 

8th. Marched early through the waters, which we now began 
to meet in those large and level plains, where from the flatness 
of the country [the water] rests a considerable time before it 
drains off ; notwithstanding which our men were in great spirits, 
though much fatigued. . . . 

1 2 th. Marched across Cot plains ; saw and killed a number of 
buffaloes. The road very bad from the immense quantity of rain 



150 TJie Separatio7i of the Colonies from Englmid 

that had fallen. The men much fatigued. . . . Now twenty-one 
miles from St. Vincent. . . . 

1 5 th. Ferried across the two Wabashes, it being then five miles 
in water to the opposite hills, where we encamped. Still raining. 
Orders not to fire any guns for the future, but in case of necessity. 

1 6th. Marched all day through rain and water; crossed Fox 
river. Our provisions began to be short. . . . 

2 2d. Colonel Clark encourages his men, which gave them great 
spirits. Marched on in the waters. . . . Heard the evening and 
morning guns from the fort. No provisions yet. Lord help us ! 

23d. Set off to cross the plain called Horse-shoe Plain, about 
four miles long, all covered with water breast high. Here we 
expected some of our brave men must certainly perish, having 
frozen in the night and so long fasting. Having no other resource 
but wading this plain, or rather lake, of waters, we plunged into 
it with courage. Colonel Clark being first, taking care to have 
the boats try to take those that were weak and numbed with the 
cold into them. Never were men so animated with the thought 
of avenging the wrongs done to their back settlements as this 
small army was. About one o'clock we came in sight of the 
town. We halted on a small hill of dry land called Warren's 
Island, where we took a prisoner, hunting ducks, who informed 
us that no person suspected our coming at that season of the 
year. Colonel Clark wrote a letter by him to the inhabitants, in 
the following manner : 

To the Inhabitants of Post St. Vincent : 

Gentlemen : Being now within two miles of your village with my 
army, determined to take your fort this night, and not being willing 
to surprize you, I take this method to request such of you as are true 
citizens, and willing to enjoy the liberty I bring you, to remain still 
in your houses, and those, if any there be, who are friends to the 
king, will instantly repair to the fort and join the Hair-buyer General^ 
and fight like men. And if any such as do not go to the fort shall 
be discovered afterwards, they may depend on severe punishment. 
On the contrary, those who are true friends to liberty may depend 

1 Governor Hamilton had offered rewards to the Indians for the 
scalps of Americans. 



The BirtJi of the Nation 151 

on being well treated ; and I once more request them to keep out of 
the streets, for every one I find in arms on my arrival I shall treat 
as an enemy. ^ ^ ^^^^^ 

After wading to the edge of the water breast high we mounted 
the rising ground the town is built on about eight o'clock [p.m.]. 
Lieutenant Bailey, with fourteen regulars, was detached to fire 
on the fort while we took possession of the town. . . . The 
cannon played smartly. Not one of our men wounded. Men in 
the fort badly wounded. Fine sport for the sons of Liberty. 

24th. As soon as daylight, the fort began to play her small 
arms very briskly. One of our men got slightly wounded. About 
nine o'clock the colonel sent a flag with a letter to Governor 
Hamilton. The firing then ceased, during which time our men 
were provided with a breakfast, it being the only meal of victuals 
since the iS'*" inst. 

Colonel Clark's Letter, as follows : 

Sir : — In order to save yourself from the impending storm that 
now threatens you I order you to surrender yourself, with all your 
garrison, stores, etc., etc., etc. For, if I am obliged to storm, you 
may depend on such treatment as is justly due to a murderer. Be- 
ware of destroying stores of any kind, or any papers or letters that 
are in your possession ; for, by heaven, if you do, there shall be no 
mercy shown you. q r q^^-I^ 

Answer fro7n Governor Hamilton : 

Governor Hamilton begs leave to acquaint Colonel Clark that he 
and his garrison are not disposed to be awed into an action unworthy 
of British subjects. 

The firing then began very hot on both sides. None of our 
men wounded ; several of the men in the fort wounded through 
the port-holes, which caused Governor Hamilton to send out a 
flag with the following letter : 

Governor Hamilton proposes a truce for three days. ... He 
wishes to confer with Colonel Clark as soon as can be. . . . If Colonel 
Clark makes a difficulty of coming into the fort, Lieutenant-Governor 
Hamilton will speak to him by the gate. Henry Hamilton 



152 The Separation of the Colonies f7'oni Englaiid 

Colo7iel Clark's Answer 

Colonel Clark's compliments to Governor Hamilton, and begs to 
inform him that he will not agree to any other terms than that of 
Mr. Hamilton's surrendering himself and garrison prisoners at dis- 
cretion. If Mr. Hamilton is desirous of a conference with Colonel 
Clark, he will meet him at the church with Captain Helm. 

G. R. C. 

The messenger returned with the above answer, during which 
time came a party of Indians down the hill behind the town, who 
had been sent by Governor Hamilton to get some scalps and 
prisoners from the falls of the Ohio. Our men having got news 
of it pursued them, killed two on the spot, wounded three, took 
six prisoners — brought them into town . . . brought them to 
the main street before the fort gate, there tomahawked them and 
threw them into the river, during which time Colonel Clark 
and Governor Hamilton met at the church. Governor Hamilton 
produced certain articles of capitulation, with his name signed to 
them, which were refused. The Colonel told him he would con- 
sult with his officers and let him know the terms he would 
capitulate on. Terms as follows : 

1 . The Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton engages to deliver up 
to Colonel Clark Fort Sackville as it is at present, with all the 
stores, etc., etc., etc. 

2. The garrison are to deliver themselves as prisoners of war, 
and march out with their arms and accoutrements etc., etc. 

3. The garrison to be delivered up at 10 o'clock tomorrow. . . . 
Signed at Post St. Vincent, 24*^ February, 1779. 

Agreed to, for the following reasons : The remoteness from 
succor, the state and quantity of provisions ; unanimity of officers 
and men in its expediency, the honorable terms allowed, and, 
lastly, the confidence in a generous enemy. 

Henry Hamilton 

25th. About ten oclock Capt. Bowman's and Capt. McCarty's 
companies paraded on one side of the fort gate. Governor 
Hamilton and his garrison marched out, while Colonel Clark, 
Capt. WiUiam's and Worthington's companies marched into the 



The Birth of the Nation i 5 3 

fort, relieved the sentries, hoisted the American colors, and 
secured all the arms. . . . 

27 th. . . . came William Mires from Williamsburg [Virginia] 
with very good news. . . . 

The " very good news " was the thanks of the Virginia 
House of Burgesses to Clark for his capture of the Missis- 
sippi posts and a major's commission for Captain Bowman. 
Clark wrote to the Speaker of the House ten days before 
quitting Vincennes : 

Fort St. Henry St. Vincent, Mar. 10, 1770 
D>-Sir, ^ ^'^ 

I received your kind letter with the thanks of the House in- 
closed. I must confess, Sir, that I think my country has done me 
more honor than I merited, but may rest assured that my study 
shall be to deserve that Honor they have already conferr'd on me. 

by my publick letters you will be fully acquainted with my 
late successful expedition against Lt. Gov*" Hamilton who has 
fallen into my hands with all the principal Partizans of Detroit. 
This stroke will nearly put an end to the Indian war, had I but 
men enough to take advantage of the present confusion of the 
Indian nations, I could silence the whole in two months. I learn 
that five hundred men is ordered out to reinforce me. If they 
arrive with what I have in the country, I am in hopes will enable 
me to do something clever, 

I am with respect Sir, 

Your very humble servant 
Colonel Harrison G. R. Clark 

Speaker of the House, 



Williamsburg 
pr wm Moires 



Peace 



Soon after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 39. The 
the Loyalists, or Tories, in America addressed the follow- 
ing '' humble and dutiful declaration to the king's most 
excellent majesty, to both houses of parliament, and the 



154 J^^^^ Separation of the Colonies fro^n England 

people of Great Britain." The Declaration appeared in 
the London Chronicle of March 9, 1782. 

We, his majesty's most dutiful and faithful subjects, the loyal 
inhabitants of America, who have happily got within the protec- 
tion of the British forces, as well as those who, though too wise 
not to have foreseen the fatal tendency of the present wanton 
and causeless rebellion, yet from numberless obstacles, and un- 
exampled severities, have hitherto been compelled to remain 
under the tyranny of the rebels, and submit to the measures 
of congressional usurpation ; animated with the purest principles 
of duty and allegiance to his majesty and the British parliament, 
beg leave, with the deepest humility and reverence, on the pres- 
ent calamitous occasion of public and national misfortune, in the 
surrender of lord Cornwallis, and the army under his lordship's 
command, at Yorktown, humbly to entreat that your majesty, 
and the parliament, would be graciously pleased to permit us to 
offer this renewed testimony of loyalty and attachment to our 
most gracious sovereign, and the British nation and government ; 
and thus publicly to repeat our most heart-felt acknowledgments 
for the infinite obligations we feel ourselves under for the heavy 
expenses that have been incurred, and the great national exer- 
tions that have been made, to save and rescue us, and your 
American colonies, from impending ruin, and the accumulated 
distresses and calamities of civil war. . . . Our sufferings as men, 
and our duty as loyal subjects, point out to us at once, the 
propriety, in our present situation, of thus publicly repeating 
our assurances, that we revere, with a kind of holy enthusiasm, 
the ancient constitution of the American colonies ; and that we 
cannot but lament every event, and be anxiously solicitous to 
remove every cause or suspicion, that might have the most 
distant tendency to separate the two countries. . . . 

Unhappily, indeed, for ourselves, and we cannot but think 
unfortunately too for Great Britain, the number of well affected 
inhabitants in America to the parent country, cannot, for obvious 
reasons, be exactly ascertained. . . . The penalty under which 
any American subject enlists in his majesty's ser\dce, is no less 
than the immediate forfeiture of all his goods and chattels, lands 



TJie BirtJi of the N^ation 155 

and tenements ; and if apprehended [captured], and convicted 
by the rebels of having enlisted, or prevailed on any other per- 
son to enlist in his majesty's service, it is considered as treason, 
and punished with death, , . . Yet, notwithstanding all these 
discouraging circumstances, there are many more men i?t his 
majesty's provincial regiments than there are in the Continental 
sendee. Hence it cannot be doubted but that there are more 
loyalists in America than there are rebels ; and also that their 
zeal must be greater, or so many would not have enlisted into 
the provincial service under such very unequal circumstances. 
. . , We also infer from the small number of militia collected 
by General Greene, the most popular and able general in the 
service of congress, in the long circuitous march he took through 
many of the most populous, and confessedly the most rebellious 
counties in that cauntry, that there must be a vast majority of 
loyalists in that part of America, as well as elsewhere. . . } 

Relying with the fullest confidence upon national justice and 
compassion to our fidelity and distresses, we can entertain no 
doubts but that Great Britain will prevent the ruin of her Ameri- 
can friends, at every risk short of certain destruction to herself. 
But if compelled, by adversity of misfortune, from the wicked 
and perfidious combinations and designs of numerous and power- 
ful enemies abroad, and more criminal and dangerous enemies 
at home, an idea should be formed by Great Britain of relin- 
quishing her American colonies to the usurpation of congress, 
we thus solemnly call God to witness, that we think the colonies 
can never be so happy or so free as in a constitutional connex- 
ion with, and dependence on Great Britain ; convinced, as we 
are, that to be a British subject, with all its consequences, is to 
be the happiest and freest member of any civil society in the 
known world. 

1 The last royal governor of New York, James Robertson, in his 
proclamation of April 15, 1780, spoke of "the ingenuous thousands of 
America " who were faithful to the King ; and of " the Few " rebels 
who had " found Means to acquire Sway in the Management of your 
affairs." " Can they want Evidence at this day," he continues, " of the 
Detestation of their Measures, by an increasing Majority of their own 
Countrymen ?" E. B. O'Callaghan, Documentary History of New York, 
Vol. IV, p. 1086. 



156 The Separation of the Colonies from England 

While it is certain that the number of the Loyalists was 
exaggerated in their own eyes and in those of the British 
ofificers, nevertheless the very violence of the denunciations 
of them by the Revolutionists from Washington himself 
down to the pettiest patriot scribe shows that they were a 
real danger. Had they been only a tiny harmless minority, 
like the northern opponents of the Civil War in 1861, for 
example, or the denouncers of the Philippine War in 1 899, 
they probably would have been treated with contemptuous 
neglect or good-natured ridicule by the patriots, in spite of 
the zeal of the Sons of Liberty. The following article from 
the Pennsylvania Packet of August 5, 1779, illustrates the 
patriot's animus : 

Among the many errors America has been guilty of during 
her contest with Great Britain, few have been greater, or at- 
tended with more fatal consequences to these States, than her 
lenity to the Tories. . . . We can no longer be silent on this 
subject, and see the independence of the country, after standing 
every shock from without, endangered by internal enemies. 
Rouse, America! your danger is great — great from a quarter 
where you least expect it. The Tories, the Tories will yet be the 
ruin of you ! 'Tis high time they were separated from among 
you. They are now busy engaged in undermining your liberties. 
They have a thousand ways of doing it, and they make use of 
them all. Who were the occasion of this war ? The Tories ! 
Who persuaded the tyrant of Britain to prosecute it in a manner 
before unknown to civilized nations, and even shocking to 
barbarians ? The Tories ! . . . Who corrupt the minds of the 
good people of these States by every species of insidious coun- 
sel ? The Tories ! Who hold a traitorous correspondence with 
the enemy ? The Tories 1 . . . Who prevent your battalions from 
being filled? The Tories! . . . Who persuade those who have 
enlisted to desert ? The Tories ! . . . In short, who wish to see 
us conquered, to see us Slaves, to see us hewers of wood and 
drawers of water.'' The Tories. 



The Birth of the Nation 157 

And is it possible that we should suffer men, who have been 
guilty of all these and a thousand other calamities which this 
country has experienced, to live among us ! To live among us, 
did I say ? Nay, do they not move in our assemblies ? Do they 
not insult us with their impudence ? Do they not hold traitorous 
assemblies of their own ? Do they not walk the streets at noon- 
day, and taste the air of liberty ? 

Believe not a spark of . . . virtue is to be found in the Tory's 
breast ; for what principle can that wretch have who would sell 
his soul to subject his country to the will of the greatest tyrant 
the world at present produces ? 'Tis time to rid ourselves of 
these bosom vipers. An immediate separation is necessary. I 
dread to think of the evils every moment is big with, while a single 
Tory remains among us. . . . Awake, Americans, to a sense of 
your danger. No time to be lost. Instantly banish every Tory 
from among you. Let America be sacred alone to freemen. 

Drive far from you every baneful wretch who wishes to see 
you fettered with the chains of tyranny. Send them where they 
may enjoy their beloved slavery to perfection — send them to 
the island of Britain ; there let them drink the cup of slavery 
and eat the bread of bitterness all the days of their existence — 
there let them drag out a painful life, despised and accursed by 
those very men whose cause they have had the wickedness to 
espouse. Never let them return to this happy land — never let 
them taste the sweets of that independence which they strove to 
prevent. Banishment, perpetual banishment, should be their lot. 

First among the Tory satirists, both in the power and in 
the venom of his pen, was Jonathan Odell, a graduate of 
Princeton College in 1754, surgeon in the British army 
in the West Indies, then rector in the Anglican Church in 
the province of New Jersey. Up to the last battle of the 
Revolution, and while there was a British soldier left in 
America, Odell maintained his confidence that the '' re- 
bellion" would be crushed. When America won the fight, 
Odell retired to Nova Scotia, where he lived in poverty, 



158 The Separation of the Colonies from England 

an " unreconstructed " Loyalist to the end of his long life. 
We print here his ode on the birthday of King George, 
June 4, 1777, and his denunciation of Washington in 
The American Times, 1779: 

Time was when America hallow'd the morn 
On which the loved monarch of Britain was born 
Hallow'd the day, and joyfully chanted 
God save the King ! 

Then flourished the blessings of freedom and peace, 
And plenty flow'd in with a yearly increase ; 
Proud of our lot, we chanted merrily 

Glory and joy crown the King ! 

With envy beheld by the nations around. 
We rapidly grew, nor was anything found 
Able to check our growth while we chanted 
God save the King ! 

O blest beyond measure, had honor and truth 

Still nurs'd in our hearts what they planted in youth I 

Loyalty still had chanted merrily 

Glory and joy crown the King ! 

But see ! how rebellion has lifted her head ! 
How honor and truth are with loyalty fled ! 
Few are there now who join us in chanting 
God save the King ! 

And see how deluded the multitude fly 
To arm in a cause that is built on a lye ! 
Yet we are proud to chant thus merrily 
Glory and joy crown the King ! 

Though faction by falsehood a while may prevail. 
And loyalty suffers a captive in jail, 
Britain is rouzed, rebellion is falling ; 
God save the King ! 



J 



The Birth of the Nation 1 59 

The captive shall soon be releas'd from his chain ; 
And conquest restore us to Britain again 
Ever to join in chanting merrily 

Glory and joy crown the King ! 



Hear thy indictment, Washington, at large ; 

Attend and listen to the solemn charge : 

Thou hast supported an atrocious cause 

Against thy king, thy country, and the laws 

Committed perjury, encouraged lies. 

Forced conscience, broken the most sacred ties ; 

Myriads of wives and fathers at thy hand 

Their slaughtered husbands, slaughtered sons demand. 

What could, when halfway up the hill to fame 

Induce thee to go back and link with shame ? 

Was it ambition, vanity or spite 

That prompted thee with Congress to unite ? 

Or did all three within thy bosom roll, 

' Thou heart of hero with a traitor's soul ' ? 

Go, wretched author of thy countr}''s grief, 

Patron of villainy, of villains chief ; 

Seek with thy cursed crew the central gloom. 

Ere Truth's avenging sword begin thy doom ; 

Or sudden vengeance of celestial dart 

Precipitate thee with augmented smart. 



PART III. THE NEW REPUBLIC 



PART III. THE NEW REPUBLIC 

CHAPTER VI 
THE CONSTITUTION 

The Critical Period 

The entrance of the United States into the family of 4o. The new- 
nations was a critical step. The acknowledgment of our ^j.^^^ 
independence by Great Britain provoked, rather than settled, [159] 
the most important questions. It remained to be seen, as 
Washington said, whether the Revolution should prove a 
blessing or a curse to America. There were enthusiastic 
voices raised to proclaim the event as the opening of a new 
era in the history of the world, and there were dire prophe- 
cies of anarchy and destruction. The Reverend Richard 
Price of London, who had followed our cause with sym- 
pathy, wrote the following optimistic admonition in 1785: 

Having, from pure conviction, taken a warm part in favor of 
the British colonies (now the United States of America) during 
the late war ; and been exposed, in consequence of this, to much 
abuse and some danger ; it must be supposed that I have been 
waiting for the issue with anxiety — I am thankful that my 
anxiety is removed ; and that I have been spared to be a wit- 
ness to that very issue of the war which has all along been the 
object of my wishes. With heartfelt satisfaction, I see the revo- 
lution in favor of universal liberty which has taken place in 
America ; — a revolution which opens a new prospect in human 
affairs, and begins a new era in the history of mankind ; — a 
revolution by which Britons themselves will be the greatest 
gainers, if wise enough to improve properly the check that has 
been given to the despotism of their ministers, and to catch 

163 



164 The New Republic 

the flame of virtuous liberty which has saved their American 
bretheren. . . . 

Perhaps I do not go too far when I say that, next to the 
introduction of Christianity among mankind, the American revo- 
lution may prove the most important step in the progressive 
course of human improvement. It is an event which may pro- 
duce a general diffusion of the principles of humanity, and be- 
come the means of setting free mankind from the shackles 
of superstition and tyranny, by leading them to see and know 
'' that nothing \s fimdame?ital but impartial enquiry, an honest 
mind, and virtuous practice . . . that the members of a civil 
community are confederates, not sitbjects ; and their rulers, ser- 
va?its, not masters. — And that all legitimate government consists 
in the dominion of equal laws made with common consent." . . . 

Happy will the world be when these truths shall be every- 
where acknowledged and practised upon. ... It is a conviction 
I cannot resist, that the independence of the English colonies 
in America is one of the steps ordained by Providence to intro- 
duce these times ; and I can scarcely be deceived in this con- 
viction, if the United States should escape some dangers which 
threaten them, and will take proper care to throw themselves 
open to future improvements, and to make the most of the 
advantages of their present situation. . . . They have begun 
nobly. They have fought with success for themselves and for 
the world ; and in the midst of invasion and carnage, estab- 
lished forms of government favorable in the highest degree to 
the rights of mankind. — But they have much more to do. . . . 

The present moment, however auspicious to the United States 
if wisely improved, is critical ; and, though apparently the end of 
all their dangers, may prove the time of their greatest danger. . . . 
Should the return of peace and the pride of independence lead 
them to security and dissipation — Should they lose those vir- 
tuous and simple manners by which alone Republics can long 
subsist — Should false refinement, luxury, and irreligion spread 
among them ; excessive jealousy distract their governments ; 
and clashing interests, subject to no strong controul, break the 
federal union — -The consequence will be, that the fairest ex- 
periment ever tried in human affairs will miscarry ; and that a 



The ConstiUction 165 

Revolution which had revived the hopes of good men and 
promised an opening to better times, will become a discourage- 
ment to all future efforts in favour of liberty, and prove only an 
opening to a new scene of human degeneracy and misery. 

Another English divine, Josiah Tucker, Dean of 
Gloucester, in 1781 addressed to the distinguished 
Necker, ex-controller general of the finances of France, 
a series of letters entitled Cid Bono ? or an Inquiry as to 
the benefit that could arise to America, or to any other 
nation, from the war. Tucker sees only anarchy and ruin 
ahead for the presumptuous new nation. In his sixth 
letter he writes : 

Engla?id being thus laid low, and humbled to the Dust, and 
the American stripes interlaced with the Lillies of France, every- 
where triumphant ; what is next to come to pass ? — Why truly, 
after this total Separation, the Mass of the People on the 
other side of the Atlantic, will begin to awake out of their 
Golden Dream, and reflect on their present Situation, by com- 
paring it with the past. They will do this the sooner, because 
all their Fears and Dreads about that fell Monster, the tyran- 
nical Power of England, will then be at an End ; and the Hob- 
gobling Stories of Racks and Chains, and Tortures, and Deaths, 
and raw Heads, and bloody Bones, will affright no longer. . . . 

Great indeed, and glorious were the things that had been 
promised ! They were to be the happiest of all People, pro- 
vided they would shake off the galling Yoke of Britain, and 
assert their unalienable Birthrights, their native Independence. 
When that happy Day should come, all Grievances, and all 
Complaints would cease forever ... all Jealousies, and Discords, 
and Factions, would be banished from such a State ; and Har- 
mony and Concord, Peace and Friendship, ever)'where prevail. — 
These honors and blessings were reserved for America ! 

Well, the heavy Yoke of Biitain being thus thrown off [Oh 
may Britons have the Wisdom, and the Fortitude never to yoke 
with the Ame7icans again as Fellow-Subjects, on any Terms 



1 66 The New Republic 

whatever] it is natural to ask, What have these Revolters gained 
by their long-wished-for Change, .after so much Parade and 
Bluster ? They have gained, what necessarily follows the Breach 
of Promises never intended to be fulfilled (if indeed such Ac- 
quisitions can be called Gains) they have gained a general Dis- 
appointment, mixt with Anger and Indignation. For now they 
find that all the fine Speeches, and alluring Promises of their 
patriotic Leaders, meant nothing at all — but to amuse and to 
deceive. Now they feel that the little Fingers of their new- 
fangled Republican Governors are heavier than the whole Body 
of the limited and mild Constitution of Old Englafid. And as 
they despised and rejected [like the Frogs in the Fable] the Gov- 
ernment of one King Log, they are now obliged to submit to the 
Tyranny of an hundred King Storks, . . . 

As to the future Grandeur of America, and its being a rising 
Empire, under one Head, whether Republican, or Monarchical, 
it is one of the idlest, and most visionary Notions, that ever was 
conceived even by Writers of Romance. For there is nothing 
in the Genius of the People, the Situation of their Country, or 
the Nature of their different Climates, which tends to Counte- 
nance such a Supposition. On the contrary, every Prognostic 
that can be formed from a Contemplation of their mutual Antip- 
athies, and clashing Interests, their Difference of Governments, 
Habitudes, and Manners, — plainly indicates, that the Afnericans 
will have no Center of Union among them, and no Common In- 
terest to pursue, when the Power and Government of England 
are finally removed. Moreover, when the Intersections and 
Divisions of their Country by great Bays of the Sea, and by vast 
Rivers, Lakes, and Ridges of Mountains; — and above all, when 
those immense inland Regions, beyond the Back Settlements, 
which are still unexplored, are taken into the Account, they form 
the highest Probability that the Americans never can be united 
into one compact Empire, under any Species of Government 
whatever. Their Fate seems to be, — a disunited people, till 
the End of Time. 

A saner view of the promise and the danger in the 
new situation of America was taken by Tench Coxe of 



The Constitution i6y 

Philadelphia, a distinguished writer of financial and com- 
mercial pamphlets. On May ii, 1787 (exactly two weeks 
before the Constitutional Convention began its work with 
George Washington in the chair), Coxe read a paper 
before the Society for Political Enquiries, at a meeting 
at Benjamin Franklin's house. 

There are in every country certain important crises when 
exertion or neglect must produce consequences of the utmost 
moment. The period at which the inhabitants of these states 
have now arrived, will be admitted, by every attentive and serious 
person, to be clearly of this description. Our money absorbed 
by a wanton consumption of imported luxuries, a fluctuating 
paper medium . . . foreign commerce extremely circumscribed, 
and a federal government not only ineffective, but disjointed, 
tell us indeed too plainly, that further negligence may ruin us 
forever. . . . 

The foundations of national wealth and consequence are so 
firmly laid in the United States, that no foreign power can under- 
mine or destroy them. But the enjoyment of these substantial 
blessings is rendered precarious by domestic circumstances. 
Scarcely held together by a weak and half formed federal con- 
stitution, the powers of our national government, are unequal 
to the complete execution of any salutory purpose, foreign or 
domestic. The evils resulting from this unhappy state of things 
have again shocked our reviving credit, produced among our 
people alarming instances of disobedience to the laws,^ and if 
not remedied, must destroy our property, liberties, and peace. 
Foreign powers, however disposed to favor us, can expect neither 
satisfaction nor benefit from treaties with Congress, while they 
[Congress] are unable to enforce them.'^ . . . 

1 For examples of this state of anarchy, see Muzzey, An American 
History, p. 164. 

2 When our first minister to England, John Adams, attempted to treat 
with the foreign Secretary, Lord Carmarthen, he was met with the 
ironical request for thirteen ministers from the American States. See 
Channing, History of the United States, Vol. Ill, p. 465. 



1 68 The New RepiLblic 

It would not be difficult perhaps to form a new article of 
Confederation ^ . . . and a question may arise whether fellowship 
with any state that would refuse to admit it, can be satisfactory 
or safe. . . . The present state of things instead of inviting emi- 
grants, deters all who have the means of information, and are 
capable of thinking. The settlement of our lands, and the intro- 
duction of manufactories and branches of trade yet unknown 
among us or requiring a force of capital, which are to make our 
country rich and powerful, are interrupted and suspended by 
our want of public credit and the numerous disorders of our 
government. 

41. Ham- "The Articles of Confederation," says Channing/'v^^ere 

fwanade- obsolete v^hen signed by the members of Congress, and 

quate con- antiquated when the Maryland delegates gave the consent 

September 3, of that state to their ratification." ^ To the wonderful genius 

^"^^^ of Alexander Hamilton we owe the most convincing ac- 

^^^^^ count of the inadequacy of the Articles and the first clear 

call for a convention to frame a suitable Constitution for 

the United States. On September 3, 1780, six months 

before the Articles of Confederation ivent into effect even^ 

Hamilton, then a young man of only twenty-three, wrote 

to James Duane, a member of Congress from New York : 

Liberty Pole, September 3, 1780 
Dear Sir : 

Agreeably to your request, and my promise, I sit down to 
give you my ideas of the defects of our present system, and the 
changes necessary to save us from ruin. They may, perhaps, 
be the reveries of a projector, rather than the sober views of a 
politician. You will judge of them, and make what use you 
please of them. 

The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress. It 
is hardly worth while to show in what this consists, as it seems 

1 Four months after Coxe read this paper the " new article of 
Confederation," the Constitution of the United States, was finished. 

2 Channing, History of the United States, Vol. Ill, p. 463. 



The Constitution 169 

to be universally acknowledged ; or to point out how it has hap- 
pened, as the only question is how to remedy it. It may, how- 
ever, be said, that it has originated from three causes: an excess 
of the spirit of liberty, which has made the particular States 
show a jealousy of all power not in their own hands, — and this 
jealousy has led them to exercise a right of judging in the last 
resort of the measures recommended by Congress, and of acting 
according to their own opinions of their propriety, or necessity ; 
a diffidence, in Congress, of their own powers, by which they 
have been timid and indecisive in their resolutions, constantly 
making concessions to the States, till they have scarcely left 
themselves the shadow of power ; a want of sufficient means 
at their disposal to answer the public exigencies, and of vigor 
to draw forth those means, which have occasioned them to de- 
pend on the States individually to fulfil their engagements. . . . 

It may be pleaded that Congress never had any definite 
powers granted them, and of course could exercise none, could 
do nothing more than recommend. The manner in which Con- 
gress was appointed would warrant, and the public good required 
that they should have considered themselves as vested with full 
power to pi'esei've the republic froDi harm} They have done many 
of the highest acts of sovereignty, which were always cheerfully 
submitted to : The declaration of independence, the declaration 
of war, the levying of an army, creating a navy, emitting money, 
making alliances with foreign powers, appointing a dictator,^ 
etc. All these implications of a complete sovereignty were never 
disputed, and ought to have been a standard for the whole 
conduct of administration. . . . 

But the Confederation itself is defective, and requires to be 
altered. It is neither fit for war nor peace. The idea of an un- 
controllable sovereignty in each State over its internal police will 

1 The formula {ne quid res piiblica detrinienti capiat) by which the 
Roman Senate entrusted extraordinary powers to the consuls, or re- 
pubUcan officers. 

2 The dictator in the Roman state superseded all the constituted 
powers of the Republic. It is a gross exaggeration to use this term of 
Washington, who was appointed commander of the continental army 
simply, and who was subject to the hampering control of Congress 
constantly. 



I/O The New Republic 

defeat the other powers given to Congress, and make our union 
feeble and precarious. There are instances without number 
where acts, necessary for the general good, and which rise out 
of the powers given to Congress, must interfere with the in- 
ternal police of the States ; and there are as many instances in 
which the particular States, by arrangements of internal police, 
can effectually, though indirectly, counteract .the arrangements 
of Congress. . . . 

The first step must be to give Congress powers competent 
to the public exigencies. This may happen in two ways : one 
by resuming and exercising the discretionary powers I suppose 
to have been originally vested in them for the safety of the 
States . . . the other, by calling immediately a Convention of 
all the States, with full authority to conclude finally upon a 
General Confederation, stating to them beforehand, explicitly, 
the evils arising from a want of power in Congress. . . . The 
Convention should assemble the first of November next. The 
sooner the better. Our disorders are too violent to admit of a 
common or lingering remedy. The reasons for which I require 
them [the delegates] to be vested with plenipotentiary authority 
are that the business may suffer no delay in the execution, and 
may in reality, come to effect. A Convention may agree upon 
a Confederation ; the States individually hardly ever will. . . . 

The Confederation, in my opinion, should give Congress 
complete sovereignty, except as to that part of internal police 
which relates to the rights of property and life among individuals, 
and to raising money by internal taxes. . . . Congress should 
have complete sovereignty in all that relates to war, peace, 
trade, finance ; and to the management of foreign affairs ; the 
right of declaring war; of raising armies, officering, paying 
them, directing their motions in every respect ; of equipping 
fleets, and doing the same with them ; of building fortifications 
arsenals, magazines, etc. ; of making peace on such conditions 
as they think proper ; of regulating trade, determining with what 
countries it shall be carried on ; . . . laying prohibitions on all 
the articles of export or import ; imposing duties ; . . . instituting 
Admiralty Courts etc. ; of coining money ; establishing banks 
on such terms, and with such privileges as they think proper; 



The ConstitiUion \j\ 

appropriating funds, and doing whatever else relates to the 
operations of finance ; transacting everything with foreign na- 
tions ; making alliances offensive and defensive, treaties of 
commerce, etc., etc. . . . The Confederation should provide 
certain perpetual revenues, productive and easy of collection; 
a land tax, poll tax, or the like ^ ; which, together with the duties 
on trade, and the unlocated lands, would give Congress a sub- 
stantial existence, and a stable foundation for their schemes of 
finance.^ . . . 

The second step I would recommend is, that Congress should 
instantly appoint the following great officers of State : A Secre- 
tary of Foreign Affairs, a President of War, a President of 
Marine, a Financier, a President of Trade. . . . Congress should 
choose for these offices men of the first abilities, property, and 
character in the Continent, and such as have had the best oppor- 
tunities of being acquainted with the several branches.^ . . . 

I have only skimmed the surface of the different subjects I 
have introduced. Should the plans recommended come into 
contemplation in earnest, I will endeavor to give them more 
form and particularity."^ I am persuaded a solid confederation, 
a permanent army, and a reasonable prospect of subsisting it, 
would give us treble consideration in Europe, and produce a 
peace this winter, . . . 

If a Convention is called, the minds of all the States and the 
people ought to be prepared to receive its determinations by 

1 The Income Tax of 1913 is the first of such " perpetual revenues " 
to be provided by the Congress of the United States. 

2 The student should compare these powers of Congress suggested 
by Hamilton in 1780 with those actually granted in the Constitution of 
1787 (Art. I, Sect. VIII). 

3 This suggestion of Hamilton's foreshadowed the efficient executive 
department of the government, established by the Constitution. How- 
ever, Hamilton's letter bore fruit before 1787 ; for executive officers 
were appointed by Congress — John Jay for Foreign Affairs, Robert 
Morris for Finance, and others. Let the student compare the number 
and titles of the executive officers suggested by Hamilton with those 
of our actual cabinet. 

4 The draught of Hamilton's plan for a constitution, drawn up in 
"form and particularity" in 1787 may be found in Max Farrand, Records 
of the Federal Convention, Vol. Ill, pp. 617-630. 



172 The New Republic 

sensible and popular writings, which should conform to the 
views of Congress. . . . 

I have not time even to correct and copy, but only enough 
to add that I am, very truly and affectionately, dear sir, 
Your most obedient servant, 

A. Hamilton 

''A More Perfect Union " 

42. The con- As a result of the commercial conventions held at Mount 
coiiv^entiSl, Vernon in 1785 and Annapolis in 1786, six states had 
May to Sep- already appointed delee^ates to a s^eneral convention for 

tember, 1787 , , , . • r 1 a • i r ^ r i 

the thoroughgomg revision of the Articles 01 Contedera- 



[167] 



tion, v^hen Congress issued the formal summons, Feb- 
ruary 21, 1787 :i 



Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress, it is expedient, 
that on the second Monday in May next, a convention of 
delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several states, 
be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of 
— :: revising the articles of confederation, and reporting to Congress 
and the several legislatures, such alterations and provisions 
therein, as shall when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed 
by the states, render the federal constitution adequate to the 
exigencies of Government, and the preservation of the union. 

1 Six weeks before this resolution of Congress, John Jay, Secretary 
for Foreign Affairs, wrote to Washington : " Would it not be better for 
Congress plainly and in strong terms to declare that the present Federal 
Government is inadequate to the purpose for which it was instituted . . . 
that in their opinion it would be expedient for the people of the States 
without delay to appoint State conventions . . . with the sole and express 
power of appointing deputies to a general convention, who . . . should 
take into consideration the Articles of Confederation, and make such 
alterations, amendments, and additions thereto as to them should appear 
necessary and proper? . . . No alterations in the government should, 
I think, be made, nor if attempted will easily take place, unless deducible 
from the only source of just authority — the People.'''' — John Jay, Corre- 
spondence etc., ed. II. P. Johnston, Vol. Ill, p. 229. 



The Constitution 173 

Major William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, left 
pen pictures of most of his associates in the Convention, 
which were printed first in the Savannah Georgian, April, 
1828. His characterizations of Washington, H-amilton, 
Franklin, and Madison follow : 

Gen' Washington is well known as the Commander in chief 
of the late American army. Having conducted these States to 
independence and peace, he now appears to assist in framing 
a Government to make the People happy. Like Gustavus Vasa, 
he may be said to be the deliverer of his Country ; like Peter 
the great he appears as the politician and the States-man ; and 
like Cincinnatus he returned to his farm perfectly contented 
with being only a plain Citizen, after enjoying the highest honor 
of the confederacy, — and now only seeks for the approbation 
of his Country-men by being virtuous and useful : The General 
was conducted to the Chair as President of the Convention by 
the unanimous vote of its Members. He is in the 52'' year of 
his age. 

CoP Hamilton is deservedly celebrated for his talents. He 
is a practitioner of the Law, and reputed to be a finished 
Scholar. To a clear and strong judgment he unites the orna- 
ments of fancy, and whilst he is able, convincing, and engaging 
in his eloquence the Heart and Head sympathize in approving 
him. Yet there is something too feeble in his voice to be equal 
to the strains of oratory ; — it is my opinion that he is rather 
a convincing Speaker, than a blazing Orator. CoP Hamilton 
requires time to think, — he enquires into every part of his 
subject with the searchings of phylosophy, and when he comes 
forward he comes highly charged with interesting matter, there 
is no skimming over the surface of a subject with him, he must 
sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on. — His 
language is not always equal, sometimes didactic like Bolirig- 
broke's, at others light and tripping like Stern's. His eloquence 
is not so defusive [diffusive] as to trifle with the senses, but he 
rambles just enough to strike and keep up the attendon. He 
is about T^T, years old, of small stature, and lean. His manners 



1 74 The Neiv Republic 

are tinctured with stiffness, and sometimes with a degree of 
vanity that is highly disagreable. 

D"" Franklin is well known to be the greatest phylosopher 
of the present age ; — all the operations of nature he seems to 
understand, — the very heavens obey him, and the Clouds yield 
up their Lightning to be imprisoned in his rod. But what claim 
he has to the politician, posterity must determine. It is certain 
that he does not shine much in public Council, — he is no 
Speaker, nor does he seem to let politics engage his attention. 
He is, however, a most extraordinary Man, and tells a story in 
a style more engaging than anything I ever heard. Let his 
Biographer finish his character. He is 82 years old, and pos- 
sesses an activity of mind, equal to a youth of 25 years of age. 

Mr. Maddison [Madison] is a character who has long been 
in public life ; and what is very remarkable every Person seems 
to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound 
politician, with the Scholar. In the management of every great 
question he evidently took the lead in the Convention, and tho' 
he cannot be called an Orator, he is a most agreable, eloquent, 
and convincing Speaker. From a spirit of industry and applica- 
tion, which he possesses in a most eminent degree, he always 
comes forward the best informed Man of any point in debate. 
The affairs of the United States, he perhaps, has the most 
correct knowledge of, of any Man in the L^nion. He has been 
twice a Member of Congress, and was always thought one of 
the ablest Members that ever sat in that Council. Mr. Maddison 
is about 37 years of age, a Gentleman of great modesty, — with 
a remarkably sweet temper. He is easy and unreserved among 
his acquaintance, and has a most agreable style of conversation. 

Passions often rose high during the stormy debates in 
the Convention, and it looked several times as though the 
assembly might break up in irreconcilable discord. The 
Constitution which resulted from its labors was not alto- 
gether acceptable to the leaders ; but Franklin, with his 
rare good sense and quiet reasonableness, pleaded for har- 
mony in the closing session. 



The Coiistitntio7i 1/5 

September 17 [1787], . . . The engrossed Constitution being 
read, — D"" Franklin rose with a speech in his hand, which 
. . . Mr. Wilson read in the words following : 

" Mr. President : — I confess that there are several parts of this 
Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not 
sure I shall never approve them. For, having lived long, I have 
experienced many instances of being obliged, by better infor- 
mation or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on im- 
portant subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be 
otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt 
I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to 
the judgment of others. . . . 

In these sentiments. Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with 
all its faults, if they are such ; because I think a general go\ern- 
ment necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but 
what may be a blessing to the people if well administered. . . . 
I doubt, too, whether any other Convention we can obtain may 
be able to make a better Constitution. For, when you assemble 
a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, 
you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their 
passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their 
selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production 
be expected ? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system 
approaching so near to perfection as it does ; and I think it will 
astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear 
that our councils are confounded, like those of the builders of 
Babel ; and that our states are on the point of separation, only 
to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. 
Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no 
better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best. The 
opinions I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good. 
I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these 
walls they were born, and here they shall die. If ever)'- one of 
us, in returning to our constituents, were to report the objec- 
tions he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partisans in sup- 
port of them, we might prevent its being generally received, 
and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages 
resulting naturally in our favor among foreign nations, as well 



1/6 The New Republic 

as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much 
of the strength and efficiency of any govisrnment, in procuring 
and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion — 
on the general opinion of the goodness of the government, as 
well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, 
therefore, that for our own sakes, as a part of the people, and 
for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously 
in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress 
and confirmed by the conventions) wherever our • influence may 
extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the 
means of having it well administered. 

On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every 
member of the Convention, who may still have objections to it, 
would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infal- 
libility, and, to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to 
this instrument." ... 

Whilst the last members were signing, D*" Franklin, looking 
towards the president's chair, at the back of which a rising sun 
happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, 
that painters had found it difficult to distinguish, in their art, 
a rising from a setting sun. " I have," he said, " often and 
often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my 
hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the presi- 
dent, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting ; 
but now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a 
rising, and not a setting sun." 

The labors of the Convention being finished, its presi- 
dent sent the engrossed and signed copy of the Constitution 
to Congress with the following letter : 

September 17, 1787 
Sir: 

We have now the honor to submit to the consideration of 
the United States, in Congress assembled, that Constitution 
which has appeared to us the most advisable. The friends of 
our country have long seen and desired that the power of making 



The Constitution 177 

war, peace, and treaties ; that of levying money, and regulating 
commerce ; and the correspondent executive and judicial author- 
ities, — should be fully and effectually vested in the general 
government of the Union. . . . 

It is obviously impracticable, in the federal government of 
these states, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to 
each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Indi- 
viduals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to 
preserve the rest. , . . 

In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in 
our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every 
true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is in- 
volved our prosperity, felicity, safety — perhaps our national 
existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply 
impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to 
be less rigid, on points of inferior magnitude, than might have 
been otherwise expected ; and thus the Constitution, which we 
now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual 
deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political 
situation rendered indispensable. 

That it will meet the full and entire approbation of every 
state, is not perhaps to be expected ; but each will doubtless 
consider that, had her interest alone been consulted, the conse- 
quences might have been particularly disagreeable or injurious 
to others ; that it is liable to as few exceptions as could reason- 
ably have been expected, we hope and believe ; that it may 
promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, 
and secure her freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish. 

With great respect, we have the honor to be, sir, your Excel- 
lency's most obedient and humble servants. By the unanimous 

order of the Convention. 

G° Washington, President 

His Excellency^ the President of Congress 

Only three of the delegates present at the closing ses- 43. Mason's 
sion of the Convention refused to sign the Constitution — against rati- 
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and Edmund Randolph fixation, 1788 

[1711 



1/8 The New Republic 

and George Mason of Virginia.^ Mason led the fight 
against ratification in the Virginia Convention of 1788, 
supported by Patrick Henry (who had been elected to 
the Convention at Philadelphia, but had refused to serve), 
Richard Henry Lee, and James Monroe.^ Mason published 
his apprehensive views to the citizens of Virginia under 
the title, *' The Objections of the Hon. Geo. Mason to 
the proposed Foederal Constitution." 

There is no declaration of rights : and the laws of the general 
government being paramount to the laws and constitutions of 
the several states, the declarations of rights, in the separate 
states, are no security. . . . 

The Senate have the power of altering all money-bills, and 
of originating appropriations of money, and the salaries of the 
officers of their appointment, in conjunction with the President 
of the United States — Although they are not the representatives 
of the people, or amenable to them. These, with their other 
great powers, (viz. : their powers in the appointment of ambas- 
sadors, and all public officers, in making treaties, and in trying 
all impeachments) their influence upon, and connection with, 
the supreme executive from these causes, their duration of office, 
and their being a constant existing body, almost continually 

1 Of the 65 members elected to the Constitutional Convention, 55 
attended. Of these 39 signed the Constitution. Three refused to sign, 
and 13 were absent from the closing session. Of the absentees only four 
(Lansing and Yates of New York and Mercer and Martin of Maryland) 
were hostile to the Constitution. 

'■^ About a fortnight after Virginia ratified, Monroe wrote to Thomas 
Jefferson, who was our minister in Paris, declaring that Washington's 
influence had carried the state for ratification, and that a certain letter 
of Jefferson's on the subject had been discussed with great regard for 
the author. Jefferson would probably have opposed the Constitution as 
too aristocratic, had he been at home to take part in the events of 1787- 
1788; although on the eve of his departure for Paris (July i, 1784) he 
had written to Madison from Boston : " I find the conviction growing 
strongly that nothing can preserve our confederacy unless the band of 
union, their common council, be strengthened" (Works, ed. Ford, 
Vol. Ill, p. 502). 



The Constitution 179 

sitting, joined with their being one complete branch of the legis- 
lature, will destroy any balance in the government, and enable 
them to accomplish what usurpation they please, upon the rights 
and liberties of the people. 

The judiciary of the United States is so constructed and ex- 
tended, as to absorb and destroy the judiciaries of the several 
states ; thereby rendering laws as tedious, intricate, and expen- 
sive, and justice as unattainable by a great part of the community, 
as in England ; and enabling the rich to oppress and ruin the poor. 

The President of the United States has no constitutional 
council (a thing unknown in any safe and regular government) 
he will therefore be unsupported by proper information and ad- 
vice ; and will generally be directed by minions and favorites — 
or he will become a tool to the Senate — or a council of state 
will grow out of the principal officers of the great departments 
— the worst and most dangerous of all ingredients for such a 
council, in a free country ; for they may be induced to join in 
any dangerous and oppressive measures, to shelter themselves, 
and prevent an inquiry into their own misconduct in office. . . . 

The President of the United States has the unrestrained 
power of granting pardon for treason ; which may be sometimes 
exercised to screen from punishment those whom he has secretly 
instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery 
of his own guilt. ... 

By requiring only a majority to make all commercial and 
navigation laws, the five southern states (whose product and cir- 
cumstances are totally different from those of the eight northern 
and eastern states) will be ruined : for such rigid and premature 
regulations may be made, as will enable the merchants of the 
northern and eastern states not only to demand an exorbitant 
freight, but to monopolize the purchase of the commodities, at 
their own price, for many years, to the great injury of the 
landed interest, and the impoverishment of the people. . . . 

The state legislatures are restrained from laying export duties 
on their own produce — the general legislature is restrained 
from prohibiting the further importation of slaves for twenty 
odd years, though such importations render the United States 
weaker, more vulnerable, and less capable of defence. . . . 



i8o The New Republic 

This government will commence in a moderate aristocracy ; 
it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will, in its opera- 
tion, produce a monarchy, or a corrupt oppressive aristocracy ; 
it will most probably vibrate some years between the two, and 
then terminate in the one or the other. 

44. jeffer- Of almost equal importance with the Declaration of 

fw the gov- Independence and the Constitution was the Ordinance 
ernmentof Qf 1787, which fumished the model for the s^overnment 

the West, . . . . . 

1784 of territories of the United States.^ This Ordinance was 

[165] only the resumption, amendment, and expansion of a 
plan of Jefferson's, drawn up in 1784, and rejected in 
Congress by the vote of but a single state. 

[March 22, 1784] 

The Committee to whom was recommitted the report of a 
plan for a temporary government of the Western territory have 
agreed to the following resolutions. 

Resolved, that so much of the territory ceded or to be ceded 
by individual states to the United States as is already purchased 
or shall be purchased of the Indian inhabitants & offered for sale 
by Congress, shall be divided into distinct states in the following 
manner . . . [by degrees of latitude and meridians of longitude] 

That the settlers on any territory so purchased & offered 
for sale shall, either on their own petition, or on the order of 
Cpngress, receive authority from them [Congress] ... to adopt 
the constitution and laws of any one of the original states, so 
that sUch laws nevertheless shall be subject to alteration by 
their ordinary legislature ; & to erect, subject to a like altera- 
tion, counties or townships for the election of members for 
their legislature. 

That such temporary government shall only continue in force 
in any state until it shall have acquired 20,000 free inhabitants, 

1 The Ordinance of 1787, or " Northwest Ordinance,'' may be found 
in William Macdonald, Select Documents of United States History, 
1776-1861, pp. 21-29. The student should compare the Ordinance 
with Jefferson's plan. 



TJie ConstitiLtion i8i 

when giving due proof thereof to Congress, they shall receive 
from them [Congress] authority with appointment of time & 
place to call a convention of representatives to establish a per- 
manent Constitution and Government for themselves. Provided 
that both the temporary and the permanent governments be 
established on these principles as their basis, i . That they shall 
forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States 
of America. 2. That in their persons, property & territory they 
shall be subject to the Government of the United States in 
Congress assembled, & to the articles of Confederation in all 
those cases in which the original states shall be so subject. 
3. That they shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts 
contracted or to be contracted, to be apportioned on them by 
Congress ; according to the same common rule and measure, 
by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other 
states. 4. That their respective Governments shall be in repub- 
lican forms and shall admit no person to be a citizen who holds 
any hereditary tide. 5. That after the year 1800 of the Chris- 
tian aera, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
in any of the sd [said] states, otherwise than in punishment of 
crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to have 
been personally guilty. 

That whensoever any of the sd states shall have, of free in- 
habitants, as many as shall then be in any one of the least 
numerous, of the thirteen original states, such state shall be 
admitted by it's delegates into the Congress of the United States 
on an equal footing with the said original states ; provided nine 
states agree to such admission. . . . Until such admission by 
their delegates into Congress, any of the said states after the 
establishment of their temporary^ government shall have authority 
to keep a sitting member in Congress, with a right of debating, 
but not of voting. 

That the preceding articles shall be formed into a charter of 
compact, shall be duly executed by the President of the United 
States in Congress assembled, under his hand & the seal of the 
United States, shall be promulgated & shall stand as funda- 
mental constitutions between the thirteen original states and 
each of the several states now newly described, unalterable but 



1 82 The New Republic 

by the joint consent of the United States in Congress assembled, 
t& of the particular state within which such alteration is pro- 
posed to be made. 

That measures not inconsistent with the principles of the 
Confed" & necessary for the preservation of peace & good 
order among the settlers in any of the said new states until 
they shall assume a temporary government as aforesaid, may 
from time to time be taken by the U. S. in C. as^mble^. 



CHAPTER VII 

FEDERALISTS AND REPUBLICANS 

Launching the Government 

Great interest was shown in the new republic of the 45. America 
United States by the people of Europe. We have pre- opportunity 
served about forty books by French, English, German, [134] 
and Italian travelers in this country between the Revo- 
lutionary War and the end of the eighteenth century. At 
the close of the war the venerable Benjamin Franklin, who 
from his long residence on both sides of the Atlantic was 
better qualified than any other man living to give advice 
on America to European emigrants, wrote a tract called 
" Information to those who would remove to America." 

Many Persons in Europe, having directly or by Letters, ex- 
press'd to the Writer of this, who is well acquainted with North 
America, their Desire of transporting and establishing them- 
selves in that Country ; but who appear to have formed thro' 
Ignorance, mistaken Ideas and Expectations of what is to be 
obtained there ; he thinks it may be useful, and prevent incon- 
venient, expensive, and fruitless Removals and Voyages of im- 
proper Persons, if he gives some clearer and truer Notions of , 
that part of the World, than appear to have hitherto prevailed. 

He finds it is imagined by Numbers, that the Inhabitants of 
North America are rich, capable of rewarding and disposed to 
reward, all sorts of Ingenuity ; that they are at the same time 
ignorant of all the Sciences, and, consequently, that Strangers 
possessing Talents in the Belles-Lettres, fine Arts, &c., must 
be highly esteemed, and so well paid as to become easily rich 

183 



184 TJie Nezv Republic 

themselves ; that there are also abundance of profitable Offices 
to be disposed of, which the Natives are not qualified to fill ; 
. . . that the Governments too, to encourage Emigration from 
Europe, not only pay the Expence of personal Transportation, 
but give Lands gratis to Strangers, with Negroes to work for 
them, Utensils of Husbandry, and Stocks of Cattle. These 
are all wild Imaginations ; and those who go to America with 
Expectations founded upon them will surely find themselves 
disappointed. 

The Truth is, that though there are in that Country few 
people so miserable as the poor of Europe, there are also very 
few that in Europe would be called rich ; it is rather a general 
happy Mediocrity that prevails. There are few great Proprietors 
of the Soil, and few Tenants ; most people cultivate their own 
Lands, or follow some Handicraft or Merchandise. . . . Letters 
and Mathematical knowledge are in Esteem there . . . there being 
already existing nine Colleges or Universities, viz. : four in New 
England, and one in each of the Provinces of New York, New 
Jersey, Pensilvania, Maryland, and Virginia, all furnish'd with 
learned Professors ; besides a number of smaller Academies. . . . 
Of civil Offices, or Employments, there are few ; no superflu- 
ous Ones, as in Europe ; and it is a Rule established in some 
of the States, that no Office should be so profitable as to make 
it desirable. ... It cannot be worth any Man's while, who has 
a means of Living at home, to expatriate himself, in hppes of 
obtaining a profitable Civil Office in America. 

Much less is it advisable for a Person to go thither, who has 
no other Quality to recommend him but his Birth. In Europe 
it has indeed its Value ; but it is a Commodity that cannot be 
carried to a worse Market than that of America, where people 
do not inquire concerning a Stranger, What is hel but. What 
can he do? . . . The Husbandman is in honor there, and even 
the Mechanic, because their Employments are useful. The 
People have a saying, that God Almighty is himself a Mechanic, 
the greatest in the Universe ; and he is respected and admired 
more for the Variety, Ingenuity, and Utility of his Handyworks, 
than for the Antiquity of his Family. ... In short, America is 
the Land of Labour, and by no means what the English call 



1 



Federalists and Republicans 185 

Lubberlafid, and the French Pays de Cocagne^ where the streets 
are said to be pav'd with half -peck Loaves, the Houses til'd with 
Pancakes, and where the Fowls fly about ready roasted, crying, 
Come eat me ! 

Land being cheap in that Country, from the vast Forests still 
void of Inhabitants ... so that the Propriety of an hundred 
Acres of fertile Soil full of Wood may be obtained near the 
Frontiers, in many Places, for Eight or Ten Guineas, hearty 
young Laboring Men, who understand the Husbandry of Corn 
and Cattle . . . may easily establish themselves there. A little 
Money sav'd of the good Wages they receive there, while they 
work for others, enables them to buy Land and begin their 
Plantation. . . . Multitudes of poor people from England, 
Ireland, Scotland, and Germany, have by this means in a few 
years become wealthy Farmers. . . . 

In the long-settled Countries of Europe, all Arts, Trades, 
Professions, Farms, etc., are so full, that it is difficult for a 
poor Man, who has Children, to place them where they may 
gain, or learn to gain, a decent Livelihood. . . . Hence Youth 
are dragg'd up in Ignorance of every gainful Art, and oblig'd 
to become Soldiers, or Servants, or Thieves for a Subsistance. 
In America ... it is easy for poor Families to get their Children 
instructed ; for the Artisans are so desirous of Apprentices, that 
many of them will even give money to the Parents, to have 
Boys from Ten to Fifteen Years of Age bound Apprentices to 
them till the Age of Twenty-one. . . . 

Industry and constant Employment are great Preservatives 
of the Morals and Virtue of a Nation. Hence bad Examples to 
Youth are more rare in America, which must be a comfortable 
Consideration to Parents. . . . Atheism is unknown there ; In- 
fidelity rare and secret ; so that persons may live to a great Age 
in that Country without having their Piety shocked by meeting 
with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being 
seems to have manifested his Approbation of the mutual For- 
bearance and Kindness with which the different Sects treat each 
other, by the remarkable Prosperity with which He has been 
pleased to favor the whole Country. 

1 " Land of abundance." 



1 86 The New Republic 

In October, 1787, immediately after the completion of 
the Constitution, Congress was induced by land specu- 
lators to offer for sale 5,000,000 acres (almost 8000 square 
miles) of rich land in the Ohio valley, at 66| cents per 
acre. The Ohio Company purchased 1,500,000 acres, and 
within a month had a party of forty-seven colonists ready 
to send to the new lands. Professor McMaster thus de- 
scribes the exciting days of the migration : 

Emigration to the "West now became the rage of the time. 
Every small farmer whose barren acres were covered with mort- 
gages, whose debts pressed heavily upon him, or whose roving 
spirit gave him no peace, was eager to sell his homestead for 
what it would bring, save what he could from the general wreck, 
and begin life anew on the banks of the Muskingum or the 
Ohio. And so many did so that at the return of every spring 
hundreds of boats went down the Ohio heavy with cattle and 
household goods. One observer at Fort Pitt wrote home that 
between the first of March and the middle of April 1787, he 
saw fifty flat-boats set off for the settlements. Another at Fort 
Finney saw thirty-four boats pass in thirty-nine days. . . . An- 
other safe authority estimated that no less than ten thousand 
emigrants went by Marietta in 1788. ... In New England the 
success of the Ohio Company in procuring emigrants was im- 
mense. They advertised, they put out pamphlets assuring the 
people that a man of push and courage could nowhere be so 
prosperous and so happy as in the West, The climate was de- 
lightful. Rain was abundant. The soil rich and watered by 
broad rivers, along whose banks were great bottoms and natural 
meadows from twenty to fifty miles in circuit. ... In no long 
time, therefore, the Company's lumbering wagon, with its black 
canvas cover and flaming inscription, '' To Marietta on the Ohio," 
became a familiar sight. At first the departure of so many men 
from the States was litde heeded, for they were believed to be 
broken-down farmers and Shayites going to retrieve their for- 
tunes and their honor in the West. But when it was noticed 
that behind the wagon rode numbers of most robust and 



Federalists mid Republicans 187 

promising youths, the alarm of the people broke forth in bitter 
complaints. The scheme was denounced in the coffee-houses as 
a wicked plot to drain the East of its best blood. The opponents 
of the company put out a number of pamphlets against it, and 
wrote much bad verse on Cutler [the organizer of the Ohio Com- 
pany]. The poor fools, it was said, were being enticed from 
comfortable homes under the promise that they were going to 
a land of more than tropical richness ; to a land where they 
should reap without having sown, and gather without having 
ploughed. But in truth the climate was cold, the land sterile and 
sickly, and the woods full of Indians, panthers, and hoop-snakes.^ 

The Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, one of our 
French visitors in 1/95- 1797, gives the following account 
of how a plucky Englishwoman, Mistress Dash, took ad- 
vantage of the opportunities offered by America to begin 
life over again. 

In one of our boating trips about Northumberland, with 
Priestly's son, we landed near a wooden house, set on the side 
of a huge mountain covered with woods and rocks, and sepa- 
rated from the river by sloping ground some dozen rods wide. 
This little house is inhabited by an Englishwoman. She has 
three daughters, of whom the youngest only, a girl of twenty, 
is with her. She left England after her husband went bankrupt, 
both to shun the disgrace of his failure . . . and to prepare a 
retreat for him after he should have settled his accounts. She 
is Mistress Dash, and her husband is a banker of Bath, and 
colonel of the militia of his County. . . . 

It would be impossible for a mortal to show greater courage 
than this woman has shown since she bought this absolutely 

1 " I have a distinct recollection of a picture which I saw in boyhood 
prefixed to a penny anti-moving-to-Ohio pamphlet, in which a stout, 
ruddy, well-dressed man on a sleek, fat horse with a label, ' I am going 
to Ohio,' meets a pale and ghastly skeleton of a man, scarcely half 
dressed, on the wreck of what was once a horse, with a label, ' I have 
been to Ohio.'" — Walker. Transactions of Historical and Philosophical 
Society of Ohio, Part II, p. 194. 



1 88 The New Republic 

uncultivated piece of property of a hundred acres. Six months 
ago there was n't a hut on the place, or a single tree cut. She 
has conquered every obstacle ; and at present she is building a 
stone house, in which she will be able, within a year, to offer 
her husband a comfortable retreat. , . . Two of her daughters 
have married since they came to America. . . . 

This woman's experience has convinced me again of the great 
profit in the cultivation of new soil. Mistress Dash bought her 
hundred acres for two hundred and sixty five dollars. She has 
cultivated twenty acres . . . and spent, in the cultivation, in 
building house and stable, etc., a thousand and sixty five dollars. 
. . . Her twenty acres yield 400 bushels of grain, which is selling 
this year at ten shillings a bushel. . . . She has therefore real- 
ized in the first year, from only twenty acres of her property, 
4000 shillings, or 533 dollars, — almost half her entire expense, 
counting the cost of the acquisition of the property. 

46. The in- On April 30, 1 789, George Washington took the oath 
th^ govern-^ of office as first president of the United States, and de- 
ment, 1789 livered a very formal speech to both houses of Congress, 
[186] in which he protested his incapacity for the proper admin- 
istration of the high office intrusted to him, begged his 
fellow countrymen's indulgence for his shortcomings, 
and expressed his conviction that ''the preservation of 
the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republi- 
can model of government" were ^'deeply, ^Qrhdi^s finally 
staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the 
American people." His secretary, Mr. Tobias Lear, de- 
scribes the inauguration in his Diary : 

April 30th — The morning was employed in making such 
arrangements as were necessary for the ceremonies of the day. 
At nine o'clock all the churches in the city were opened, and 
prayers offered up to the Great Ruler of the universe for the 
preservation of the President. At twelve the troops of the city 
paraded before our door, and, soon after, the committees of 
Congress and heads of departments came in their carriages to 



Federalists and Republicans 1 89 

wait upon the President to the Federal Hall. At half past twelve 
the procession moved forward, the troops marching in front with 
all the ensigns of military parade. Next came the committees 
and heads of departments in their carriages. Next the President 
in the state coach, and Colonel Humphreys and myself in the 
President's own carriage. The foreign ministers and a long train 
of citizens brought up the rear. 

About two hundred yards before we reached the hall, we 
descended from our carriages, and passed through the troops, 
who were drawn up on each side, into the Hall and Senate- 
Chamber, where we found the Vice-President, the Senate, and 
the House of Representatives assembled. They received the 
President in the most respectful manner, and the Vice-President 
conducted him to a spacious and elevated seat at the head of 
the room. A solemn silence prevailed. The Vice-President soon 
arose and informed the President that all things were prepared 
to administer the oath whenever he should see fit to proceed to 
the balcony and receive it. He immediately descended from his 
seat, and advanced through the middle door of the Hall to the 
balcony. The others passed through the doors on each side. 
The oath was administered in public by Chancellor Livingston ; 
and the moment the Chancellor proclaimed him President of the 
United States, the air was rent by repeated shouts and huzzas 
— God bless our Washington I Long live our beloved President ! 
We again returned into the Hall, where, being seated as before 
for a few moments, the President arose and addressed the two 
branches of Congress in a speech, which was heard with eager 
and marked attention. 

After the President had finished his speech, we proceeded 
from the Senate-chamber on foot to St. Paul's church, in the 
same order that we had observed in our carriages, where the 
bishop read prayers suited to the occasion. We were then met 
at the church door by our carriages, and we went home. 

In the evening there was a display of most beautiful fire-works 
and transparent paintings at the Battery. The President, Colonel 
Humphreys, and myself went in the beginning of the evening in 
the carriages to Chancellor Livingston's and General Knox's, 
where we had a full view of the fire-works. We returned home 



190 The New Republic 

at ten on foot, the throng of people being so great as not to 
permit a carriage to pass through it. 

In spite of the " repeated shouts and huzzas," there were 
many who thought that we were tending rapidly to an aris- 
tocratic despotism. William Maclay, Senator from Pennsyl- 
vania in the first Congress of the United States, has left 
us an acrimonious journal of the years 1 789-1 79 1 , in which 
his sturdy republican principles and prejudices are expressed 
with unsparing frankness. 

30th April, Thursday. — This is a great, important day. God- 
dess of etiquette, assist me while I describe it. . . . The Senate 
met. The Vice-President rose in the most solemn manner. This 
son of Adam seemed impressed with deeper gravity, yet what 
shall I think of him ? He often in the midst of his most important 
airs . . . suffers an unmeaning kind of vacant laugh to escape 
him. This was the case today, and really to me bore the air of 
ridiculing the farce he was acting. " Gentlemen, I wish for the 
direction of the Senate. The President will, I suppose, address 
the Congress. How shall I behave ? How shall we receive it ? 
Shall it be standing or sitting ? " . . . 

As the company returned into the Senate chamber [after the 
oath], the President took the chair. . . . He rose and addressed 
them. This great man was agitated and embarrassed more than 
ever he was by the leveled cannon or pointed musket. He 
trembled, and several times could scarce make out to read. . . . 
When he came to the words all the world, he made a flourish 
with his right hand, which left rather an ungainly impression. I 
sincerely, for my part, wished all set ceremony in the hands of 
the dancing-masters, and that this first of men had read off his 
address in the plainest manner, without ever taking his eyes from 
the paper, for I felt hurt that he was not first in everything. 
He was dressed in a deep brown, with metal buttons, with an 
eagle on them, white stockings, a bag [for the hair], and sword 

May I St — Attended the Hall at eleven. The prayers were over 
and the minutes reading. When we came to the minute of the 
speech it stood, His most gracious speech. I looked all around 



Federalists and Republicans 19 1 

the Senate. Every countenance seemed to wear a blank. The 
Secretary was going on : I must speak or nobody would. " Mr. 
President, we have lately had a hard struggle for our liberty 
against kingly authority. The minds of men are still heated : 
everything related to that species of government is odious to the 
people. The words prefixed to the President's speech are the 
same that are usually placed before the speech of his Britannic 
Majesty. I know they will give offense. I consider them as 
improper. I therefore move that they be struck out, and that 
it stand simply address or speech, as may be judged most 
suitable." . . . 

June nth — Dined this day with Mrs. Morris. . . . She talked 
a great deal after dinner. ... I have ever been attentive to dis- 
cover, if possible, General Washington's private opinions on the 
pompous part of government. His address of '' fellow-citizens " 
to the two Houses of Congress seems quite republican. Mrs. 
Morris, however, gave us something on this subject. General 
Washington, on a visit to her, had deda^-ed himself in the most 
pointed manner fo?' generous salaries ; and added that without 
large salaries proper persons could never be got to Jill the offices of 
goverjiment with pi'opriety. He might deliver something of this 
kind with propriety enough without using the word '' large." 
However, if he lives with the pompous people of New York, he 
must be something more than human if their high-toned manners 
have not some effect on him. ... * 

August 2 7th — Thursday. Senate adjourned early. At a little 
after four I called on Mr. Bassett, of the Delaware State. We 
went to the President's to dinner. . . . The President and Mrs. 
Washington sat opposite each other in the middle of the table ; 
the two secretaries, one at each end. It was a great dinner, and 
the best of the kind I ever was at. The room, however, was 
disagreeably warm. First was the soup ; fish roasted and boiled ; 
meats, gammon, fowls etc. This was the dinner. . . . The desert 
was, first apple-pies, pudding etc. ; then iced-creams, jellies, etc. ; 
then water-melons, musk-melons, apples, peaches, nuts. 

It was the most solemn dinner I ever sat at. Not a health 
drank ; scarce a word said until the cloth was taken away. Then 
the President, filling a glass of wine, with great formality, drank 



192 The Nezv Republic 

to the health of every individual by name round the table. Every- 
body imitated him, charged glasses, and such a buzz of " health, 
sir," and '' health, madam," and " thank you, sir," and '' thank 
you, madam," never had I heard before. . . . Mrs. Washington 
at last withdrew with the ladies. 

I expected the men would now begin, but the same stillness 
remained. The President told of a New England clergyman who 
had lost a hat and wig in passing a river called the Brunks. He 
smiled, and everybody else laughed. He now and then said a 
sentence or two on some common subject, and what he said was 
not amiss. . . . There was a Mr. Smith who mentioned how 
Homer described yEneas leaving his wife and carrying his father 
out of flaming Troy . . . but if he had ever read it he would have 
said Vh'gil. The President kept a fork in his hand, when the 
cloth was taken away, I thought for the purpose of picking nuts. 
He ate no nuts, however, but played with the fork, striking on 
the edge of the table with it. We did not sit long after the ladies 
retired. The President rose, went up stairs to drink coffee ; the 
company followed. I took my hat and came home. 

When Thomas Jefferson returned from France to take 
up his duties as Secretary of State in Washington's cabinet 
(March, 1790), Alexander Hamilton vv^as already well along 
I^^^J in the development of his plans for strengthening the 
financial status of the government. ^ When Washington 
requested from his cabinet written opinions on the subject 
of the charter of a national bank, Jefferson submitted the 
following paper (February 15, 1791) : 

... I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on 
this ground : That " all powers not delegated to the United 
States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
are reserved to the States or to the people " [Amendment X]. 
To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially 
drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of 

1 For Ilamikon's measures see Muzzey, An American History, 
pp. 189-191. 



Federalists a7id Republicans 193 

a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any defi- 
nition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by 
this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution. 

I. They are not among the powers specially enumerated : 
for these are : i st A power to lay taxes for the purpose of pay- 
ing the debts of the United States [Art. I, Sect. VIII] ; but no 
debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise 
money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the 
Constitution [Art. I, Sect. VII]. 

2d. "To borrow money." But this bill neither borrows money 
nor ensures the borrowing of it. The proprietors of the bank 
will be just as free as any other money holders, to lend or not to 
lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the 
bill, first to lend them two millions, and then to borrow them back 
again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still 
be a payment, and not a loan, call it by what name you please. 

3. "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among 
the States, and with the Indian tribes." To erect a bank, and 
to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects 
a bank, creates a subject of commerce in its bills ; so does he 
who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines ; 
yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To 
make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe 
regulations for buying and selling. Accordingly, the bill does 
not propose the measure as a regulation of trade, but as " pro- 
ductive of considerable advantages to trade." Still less are these 
powers covered by any other of the special enumerations. 

II. Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which 
are the two following : ^ — 

I. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the 
United States. That is to say, " to lay taxes for the purpose of 
providing for the general welfare." . . . They are not to lay 

1 The second of the " general phrases " is " to make all laws which 
shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution " the enu- 
merated powers. Jefferson argues on this point that \}cv^ convenience ^ht. 
bank might be in the collection of taxes is not proof of either its necessity 
ox xXs, propriety . 



194 TJie New Republic 

taxes ad libitum for a7iy purpose they please \ but only to pay the 
debts or provide for the welfare of the Unio7t. In like manner, 
they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general 
welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the 
latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as 
giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they 
please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render 
all the preceding and subsequent enumeration of power com- 
pletely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single 
phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever 
would be for the good of the United States ; and as they would 
be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power 
to do whatever evil they please. 

It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will 
bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow 
some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that 
which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such 
universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended 
to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those 
without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into 
effect. . . . 

Hamilton carried Congress with him on the bank, fund- 
ing, and tariff bills, in spite of the able opposition led by 
Jefferson. In the spring of 1792 he unbosomed him- 
self to his friend Colonel Edward Carrington in a long 
letter, intended perhaps primarily to exhibit Jefferson to 
the people of his own state in his true light, and to ex- 
plain to the Virginia Federalists why he had broken with 
Madison and attacked Jefferson. 

,, , ^. Philadelphia, May 26, 1702 

My dear Sir : i j i j 

Believing that I possess a share of your personal friendship 
and confidence, and yielding to that which I feel toward you ; 
persuaded also, that our political creed is the same on two essen- 
tial points — first the necessity of Union to the respectability 
and happiness of this country, and second, the necessity of an 



Federalists aitd Republicans 195 

efficient general government to maintain the Union, I have con- 
cluded to unbosom myself to you on the present state of 
political parties and views. . . . 

It was not till the last session that I became unequivocally 
convinced of the following truth : " that Mr. Madison, cooper- 
ating with Mr. Jefferson, is at the head of a faction decidedly 
hostile to me and my administration; and actuated by views, 
in my judgment, subversive of the principles of good govern- 
ment and dangerous to the Union, peace, and happiness of the 
country." 

Mr. Jefferson, with very little reserve, manifests his dislike of 
the funding system generally ... I do not mean that he advo- 
cates directly the undoing of what has been done, but he cen- 
sures the whole on principles which, if they should become 
general, could not but end in the subversion of the system. In 
various conversations, with foreigners as well as citizens, he has 
thrown censure on my principles of government and on my 
measures of administration. He has predicted that the people 
would not long tolerate my proceedings. . . . Some of those 
whom he immediately and notoriously moves have even whis- 
pered suspicions of the rectitude of my motives and conduct. . . . 
When any turn of things in the community has threatened either 
odium or embarrassment to me, he has not been able to suppress 
the satisfaction which it gave him. . . . 

I find strong confirmation in the following circumstances : 
Freneau, the present printer of the National Gazette . . . was a 
known Anti-federalist. It is reduced to a certainty that he was 
brought to Philadelphia by Mr. Jefferson to be the conductor 
of a newspaper. It is notorious that contemporarily with the 
commencement of his paper he was a clerk in the Department 
of State, for foreign languages. Hence a clear inference that his 
paper has been set on foot and is conducted under the patron- 
age and not against the views of Mr. Jefferson. What then is 
the complexion of this paper? Let any impartial man peruse 
the numbers down to the present day, and I never was more 
mistaken if he does not pronounce that it is a paper devoted 
to the subversion of me and the measures in which I have an 
agency ; and I am little less mistaken if he does not pronounce 



ig6 



TJie New Republic 



that it is a paper of a tendency generally unfriendly to the 
government of the United States.^ . . . 

In almost all the questions, great and small, which have arisen 
since the first session of Congress, Mr, Jefferson and Mr. Madi- 
son have been found among those who are disposed to narrow 
the federal authority. ... In respect to foreign politics, the 
views of these gentlemen are, in my judgment, equally [un] sound 
and dangerous. They have a womanish attachment to France 
and a womanish resentment against Great Britain. They would 
draw us into the closest embrace of the former, and involve us 
in all the consequences of her politics.^ . . . This disposition goes 
to a length, particularly in Mr. Jefferson, of which, till lately, I 
had no idea. ... If these gentlemen were left to pursue their 
own course, there would be, in less than six months, an open 
war between the United States and Great Britain. . . . 

Mr. Jefferson, it is known, did not in the first instance cor- 
dially acquiesce in the new Constitution for the United States ; 
he had many doubts and reserves. He left this country [1784] 
before we had experienced the imbecillities of the former 
[Constitution, i. e. the Articles of Confederation]. . . . 

In France, he saw government only on the side of its abuses. 
He drank freely of the French philosophy, in religion, in science, 
in politics. He came from France in the moment of a fermenta- 
tion which he had a share in exciting. . . . He came electrified 
with attachment to France, and with the project of knitting 
together the two countries in the closest political bands. . . . 

Another circumstance has contributed to widening the breach 
[in American politics]. 'Tis evident beyond a question . . . that 
Mr. Jefferson aims with ardent desire at the Presidential chair. 
This too is an important object of the party-politics. . . . 



1 Specimens of the satirical and serious criticism of Washington's 
administration which appeared in the National Gazette are given by 
A. B. Hart in his American History told by Contemporaries, Vol. Ill, 
pp. 293 and 305. 

2 Hamilton wrote this letter about a month after France, by declar- 
ing war against Austria and Prussia, opened the quarter century of 
strife which convulsed Europe from Russia to Portugal. 



Federalists and Rcpjiblicans 197 

A word on another point. I am told that serious apprehen- 
sions are disseminated in your State as to the existence of a 
monarchical party meditating the destruction of State and re- 
publican government. If it is possible that so absurd an idea 
can gain ground, it is necessary that it should be combatted. . . } 
A very small number of men indeed may entertain theories less 
republican than Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, but I am per- 
suaded that there is not a man among them who would not 
regard as both criminal and visionary any attempt to subvert 
the republican system of the country. ... As to the destruc- 
tion of State governments, the great and real anxiety is to be 
able to preserve the national from the too potent and counter- 
acting influence of those governments. As to my own polit- 
ical creed, I give it to you with the utmost sincerity. I am 
affectionately attached to the republican theory. I desire above 
all things to see the equality of political rights, exclusive of all 
hereditary distinction. . . . 



The Reign of Federalism 

When the news of war between the French Republic 48. The neu- 
and Great Britain reached America, President Washing- famatTon|^°^' 
ton, in view of our close relations with France in the April 22, 1793 
Revolutionary War and of the treaty of 1778, which bound I^^^^l 
us to an alliance with that nation (see No. 37, p. 143), sub- 
mitted the following list of questions to each member of 
his cabinet, "preparatory," he writes, " to a meeting at 
my house tomorrow, where I shall expect to see you at 
9 o'clock, and to receive the result of your reflections 
thereon." 

1 Three days before Hamilton wrote this, Jefferson sent a letter to 
Washington, in which the following sentence occurs : " This has been 
brought about by the Monarchical federalists themselves, who having 
been for the new government merely as a stepping stone to monarchy," 
Jefferson, Writings, ed. P. L. Ford, Vol. VI, p. 5. 



198 The New Republic 

Philadelphia, 18 April, 1793 

I. Shall a proclamation issue for the purpose of preventing 
interferences of the citizens of the United States in the war 
between France and Great Britain &c. ? Shall it contain a decla- 
ration of neutrality or not ? What shall it contain ? 

II. Shall a minister from the Republic of France be received ? 

III. If received, shall it be absolutely or with qualifications ; 
and if with qualifications, of what kind ? 

IV. Are the United States obliged by good faith to consider 
the treaties heretofore made with France as applying to the 
present situation of the parties? May they either renounce 
them, or hold them suspended till the government of France 
shall be established "i 

V. If they have the right, is it expedient to do either, and 
which ? 

VI. If they have an option, would it be a breach of neutrality 
to consider the treaties still in operation ? 

VII. If the treaties are to be considered as now in operation, 
is the guarantee in the treaty of alliance applicable to a defensive 
war only, or to war either offensive or defensive ? 

VIII. Does the war in which France is engaged appear to 
be offensive or defensive on her part? Or of a mixed and 
equivocal character? 

IX. If of a mixed and equivocal character, does the guarantee 
in any event apply to such a war ? 

X. What is the effect of a guarantee such as that to be found 
in the treaty of alliance between the United States and France ? 

XI. Does any article in either of the treaties prevent ships 
of war, other than privateers, of the powers opposed to France 
from coming into the ports of the United States to act as con- 
voys to their own merchantmen ? 

XII. Should the future regent of France send a minister to 
the United States, ought he to be received ? 

XIII. Is it necessary or advisable to call together the two 
Houses of Congress, with a view to the present posture of 
European affairs ? . . . 



Federalists and Republicans 199 

Jefferson drew up the following memorandum of the 
replies to these questions : 

At a meeting of the heads of departments and the attorney- 
general at the President's, April 19, 1793, to consider the fore- 
going questions proposed by the President, it was determined 
by all, on the first question, that a proclamation shall issue 
forbidding our citizens to take part in any hostilities on the 
seas, with or against any of the belligerent powers ; and warning 
them against carrying to any such powers any of those articles 
deemed contraband, according to the modem usage of nations ; 
and enjoining them from all acts and proceedings inconsistent 
with the duties of a friendly nation towards those at war. 

On the second question, '' Shall a minister from the Republic 
of France be received ? " it was unanimously agreed, that he 
shall be received. 

The remaining questions were postponed for further con- 
sideration. 

President Washington accordingly issued the following 
proclamation : 

Whereas it appears, that a state of war exists between Austria, 
Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, and the United Netherlands, 
on the one part, and France on the other [see p. 196, note 2] ; 
and the duty and interest of the United States require, that they 
should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct 
friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers ; 

I have therefore thought fit by these presents to declare the 
disposition of the United States to observe the conduct afore- 
said towards those powers respectively, and to exhort and warn 
the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts and 
proceedings whatsoever, which may in any manner tend to 
contravene such disposition. 

And I do hereby also make known, that whosoever of the 
United States shall render himself liable to punishment or for- 
feiture under the laws of nations, by committing, aiding, or 
abetting hostilities against any of the said powers, or by carry- 
ing to any of them those articles, which are deemed contraband 



200 The Nezv Republic 

by the modern usage of nations, will not receive the protection 
of the United States against such punishment or forfeiture ; 
and further that I have given instructions to those officers, to 
whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be instituted against 
all persons, who shall within the cognizance of the courts of 
the United States violate the law of nations with respect to the 
powers at war, or any of them. 

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United 
States of America to be affixed to these presents, and signed 
the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia, the 
22^ day of April, 1793, and of the independence of the United 
States of America the seventeenth. 

49. The When on top of the Neutrality Proclamation, Washing- 

sage, Aprils, ton's government negotiated the Jay treaty with England 
179S (1794), the French Jacobins were persuaded that we were 

V^^\ hostile to their new republic. Their indignation was fur- 
ther roused when the ardent republican minister, James 
Monroe, was recalled by Washington in the summer of 
1796 for overstepping his instructions "to show our con- 
fidence in the French Republic, without betraying the most 
remote mark of undue complaisance." ^ The ill feeling 
reached its culmination when the French Directory insulted 

1 W. H. Trescott, The Diplomatic History of the Administrations 
of Washington and Adams, p. 151. Trescott prints (p. 177) the letter 
written by the Directory (the executive officials of France under the 
Constitution of 1795-1799) to Monroe when he was recalled. It is dated 
December 11, 1796, and informs Monroe that the Directors "will not 
acknowledge nor receive another Minister Plenipotentiary from the 
United States, until after the redress of the grievances demanded of the 
American government, and which the French Republic has a right to 
expect from it." The " grievance " was the negotiation of the Jay treaty, 
which the French looked on as the annulment of their treaty of 1778 
with the United States. When Monroe returned to America he published 
a long pamphlet in vindication of his conduct as Minister at Paris, which 
he called " A View of the Conduct of the Executive . . . connected with 
the mission to the French Republic during the years 1794, 5 and 6." 
— Monroe, Writings, ed. S. M. Hamilton, Vol. Ill, pp. 383-457. 



Federalists and Reptiblicans 201 

the commissioners whom President Adams sent to Paris in 
1797 to attempt to restore amity. The story is told in the 
following dispatch from the commissioners at Paris to the 
Secretary of State, which was communicated to Congress 
by President Adams on March 3, 1798 : 

-r^ ^. Paris, October 22, 1707 

Dear Sir : ' / ^ / 

All of us having arrived at Paris, on the evening of the 
4^*" instant, on the next day we verbally and unofficially in- 
formed the Minister of Foreign Affairs therewith, and desired 
to know when he would be at leisure to receive one of our 
secretaries with the official notification. He appointed the next 
day, at two o'clock, when Major Rutledge waited on him with 
the following letter : 

Citizen Minister : The United States of America being desirous 
of terminating all differences between them and the French Republic 
. . . the President has nominated, and, by and with the consent of 
the Senate, has appointed us, the undersigned . . . Envoys Extraor- 
dinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the French Republic, for 
the purpose of accomplishing this great object. . . . We wish, Citizen 
Minister, to wait on you at any hour you will be pleased to appoint, 
to present the copy of our letters of credence ; and whilst we evince 
our sincere and ardent desire for the speedy restoration of friendship 
and harmony between the two Republics, we flatter ourselves with 
your concurrence in the accomplishment of this desirable event. . . . 

Charles C. Pinckney 
John Marshall 

Paris, October 6 '^"'"'^S'^ ^^"y 

To this letter the Minister gave a verbal answer that he 
would see us the day after the morrow (the 8"') at one o'clock. 
Accordingly at that day and hour we waited on the Minister at 
his house. . . . He informed us " that the Directory had required 
him to make a report relative to the situation of the United 
States with regard to France, . . . which would be finished in 
a few days, when he would let us know what steps were to 
follow." . . . The next day cards of hospitality were sent us 
and our secretaries, in a style suitable to our official character. . . . 



202 The New Repicblic 

In the morning of October the i8"\ M. W^ called on General 
Pinckney and informed him that a M. X who was in Paris, 
and whom the General had seen was a gentleman of consider- 
able credit and reputation and that we might place great reli- 
ance on him. 

In the evening of the same day, M. X called on General 
Pinckney, and after having sat some time whispered to him 
that he had a message from M. Talleyrand to communicate 
when he was at leisure. . . . General Pinckney said that he 
should be glad to hear it. M. X replied that the Directory, 
and particularly two of the members of it, were exceedingly 
irritated at some passages of the President's Speech,^ and de- 
sired that they should be softened, and that this step would be 
necessary previous to our reception. That, besides this, a sum 
of money was required for the pocket of the Directory and 
Ministers which would be at the disposal of M. Talleyrand ; 
and that a loan would also be insisted on. M. X said that if 
we acceded to these measures, M. Talleyrand had no doubt 
that all our differences with France might be accommodated. 
On inquiry, M. X could not point out the particular passages 
of the Speech that had given offence, nor the quantum of the 
loan, but mentioned that the douceur for the pocket, was 
1,200,000 livres, about 50,000 pounds sterling. . . . 

On the morning of the 20^'' M. X called and said that M. Y, 
the confidential friend of M. Talleyrand, instead of communi- 
cating with us through M. X, would see us himself and make 

1 The names of the agents who dealt with our Commissioners were 
given in the report from Paris, but Secretary of State Pickering with- 
held them in the documents he submitted to Congress, supplying their 
places by the letters W, X, V, and Z. The A/, before these letters in 
the text stands for the French word Monsieur (Mr.). 

2 The speech to the special session of Congress, convened May 16, 
1797. In it Adams reviews the behavior of France, and says that it 
" ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince France and 
the world that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial 
spirit of fear, and sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instru- 
ments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character, 
and interest." — Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 
Vol. I, p. 235. 



Federalists and Republicans 203 

the necessary explanations. We appointed to meet him the 
evening of the 20^'' at seven o'clock, in General Marshall's 
room. At seven M. Y and M. X entered. ... M. Y stated to 
us explicitly and repeatedly that he was clothed with no author- 
ity, that he was not a diplomatic character, that he was only 
the friend of M. Talleyrand, and trusted by him. . . . He then 
took out of his pocket a French translation of the President's 
speech, the parts of which, objected to by the Directory were 
marked. . . . On reading the speech, M. Y dilated very much 
upon the keenness of the resentment that it had produced, and 
expatiated largely on the satisfaction he said was indispensably 
necessary as a preliminary to negotiation. " But," said he, '' Gen- 
tlemen, I will not disguise from you that, this satisfaction being 
made, the essential part of the treaty remains to be adjusted ; 
il faut de I'argent — il faut beaucoup d'argent; " you must pay 
money, you must pay a great deal of money. He spoke much of 
the force, the honor, and the jealous republican pride of France ; 
and represented to us strongly the advantage we should derive 
from the neutrality thus to be purchased. He said that the 
receipt of the money might be so disguised as to prevent its 
being considered a breach of neutrality by England, and thus 
save us from being embroiled with that Power. . . . These 
propositions being considered . . . M. Talleyrand trusted that, 
by his influence with the Directory, he could prevail on the 
Government to receive us. . . . 

The nature of the above communication will evince the neces- 
sity of secrecy ; and we have promised Messrs. X and Y that 
their names shall in no event be made public. 

We have the honor to be etc., C. C. Pinckney 

J. Marshall 
E. Gerry 

M. Talleyrand advised Pinckney and Marshall to " quit 50. A plea 
the territory of the French Republic " and let him carry o°ctob?r^2' 
on negotiations with Gerry (the democratic member of the ^798 
commission) alone. When Adams heard of this high- [202] 
handed ''diplomacy," he wrote to Congress (June 21, 



204 TJie Nezv Republic 

1798) : "I will never send another Minister to France 
without assurances that he will be received, respected, and 
honored as the representative of a great, free, powerful, 
and independent nation." Preparations for war were made, 
and George Washington was appointed commander of 
the army. Joel Barlow, who had gone to Paris ten years 
earlier as agent for the Ohio Land Company (see p. 186 
above), wrote the following letter to Washington in the 
vain attempt to stave off the war : 

Paris, 2^ October, 1798 
Sir, 

On hearing of your nomination, for the second time, as com- 
mander in chief of the American armies, I rejoice at it ; not 
because I believe that the war which this nomination contem- 
plates is yet unavoidable, and that it will furnish an occasion 
for the further display of your military talents ; but because it 
may enable you to exert your influence to a greater effect in 
preventing the war. . . . 

Perhaps few men who cannot pretend to have been in the 
secrets of either government, are in a better situation than 
myself to judge of the motives of both ; to assign the true 
causes of their unhappy misunderstanding ; or to appreciate 
their present dispositions, pretensions, and wishes. I am cer- 
tain no one labors more sincerely for the restoration of harmony, 
on terms honorable to the United States, and advantageous to 
the cause of liberty. 

I will not in this place go over the history of past transactions. 
It would be of little use. The object is to seize the malady in 
its present state, and try to arrest its progress. The dispute at 
this moment may be characterized simply and literally a mis- 
understaiidijig. I cannot persuade myself to give it a harsher 
name, as it applies to either governm.ent. It is clear that neither 
of them has an interest in going to war with the other ; and I 
am convinced that neither of them has the inclination. . . . 

But each government . . . believes the other determined on 
war, and ascribes all its conduct to a deep-rooted hostility. . . . 



Federalists and Republicans 205 

By what fatality is it that a calamity so dreadful is to be 
rendered inevitable because it is thought so ? Both governments 
have tongues, and both have ears. Why will they not speak ? 
Why will they not listen ? The causes that have hitherto pre- 
vented them are not difficult to assign. . . . But I will avoid 
speaking of any past provocations on either side. The point 
which I wish to establish in your mind is, that the French Direc- 
tory is at present sincerely desirous of restoring harmony be- 
tween this country and the United States, on terms advantageous 
to both parties. ... 

You will judge whether it does not comport with the inde- 
pendence of the United States, and the dignity of their gov- 
ernment, to send another minister, to form new treaties with 
the French Republic. . . . 

Were I wTiting to a young general, whose name was yet to 
be created, I might deem it vain to ask him to stifle in its birth 
a war on which he had founded his hopes of future honors. 
But you, Sir, having already earned and acquired all that can 
render a man great and happy, can surely have no object of 
ambition, but to render your country so. To engage your in- 
fluence in favor of a new attempt at negotiation, before you 
draw your sword, I thought it only necessar)^ to convince you 
that such attempt would be w^ell received here, and probably 
attended with success. . . . 

I am not accustomed to interpose my advice in the adminis- 
tration of any country ; and should not have done it now, did 
I not believe it my duty, as a citizen of my own and a friend 
to all others. I see two great nations rushing on each other's 
bayonettes, without any cause of contention but a misunder- 
standing. I shudder at the prospect, and wish to throw myself 
between the vans, and suspend the onset, till a word of explana- 
tion can pass. ... ^ , t^ 1 

Joel Barlow 

The strife between Federalists and Republicans broke 5i. The Ken- 
up Washington's cabinet, divided the country into bitterly virgin^ res- 
hostile factions, and culminated in the eventful year 1798, oiutions, 

. . 1798-1799 

when the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, x^^^. 



2o6 The New Republic 

and the Republicans replied by the Kentucky and Virginia 
Resolutions, drawn up by Jefferson and Madison respec- 
tively. Both sets of resolutions were sent to the other 
states of the Union for approval ; but not one of the seven 
replies received was favorable. Kentucky then contented 
herself by reaffirming her position, with the addition of a 
new resolution (November 22, 1799), while Virginia simply 
referred the matter to a committee. The Virginia Reso- 
lutions of 1798 and the Kentucky Resolution of 1799 
follow : 

In the House of Delegates 
Friday, December 21, 1798 

[i.] Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia doth 
unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend 
the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of 
this State, against every aggression foreign or domestic; and 
that they will support the Government of the United States in 
all measures warranted by the former. 

[2 .] That this Assembly most solemnly declares a warm attach- 
ment to the Union of the States, to maintain which it pledges 
all its powers ; and that, for this end, it is their duty to watch 
over and oppose every infraction of those principles which 
constitute the only basis of that Union, because a faithful 
observance of them can alone secure its existence and the 
public happiness. 

[3.] That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily 
declare that it views the powers of the Federal Government as 
resulting from the compact to which the States are parties, as 
limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument con- 
stituting that compact . . . and that, in case of a deliberate, pal- 
pable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by 
the said compact, the States, who are parties thereto, have the 
right and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the 
progress of the evil. . . . 

[4.] That the General Assembly doth also express its deep 
regret, that a spirit has in sundry instances been manifested by 



Federalists and Republicans 207 

the Federal Government to enlarge its powers by farced con- 
structions of the constitutional charter which defines them . . . 
and so to consolidate the States, by degrees, into one sover- 
eignty, the obvious tendency and the inevitable result of which 
would be to transform the present republican system of the 
United States into an absolute, or, at best, a mixed monarchy. 

[5.] That the General Assembly doth particularly protest 
against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitu- 
tion in the two late cases of the " Alien and Sedition Acts," 
passed at the last session of Congress ; the first of which exer- 
cises a power nowhere delegated to the Federal Government 
. . . and the other of which acts exercises, in like manner, a 
power not delegated by the Constitution, but, on the contrary, 
expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments 
thereto — a power which more than any other, ought to produce 
universal alarm, because it is levelled against the right of freely 
examining public characters and measures, and of free com- 
munication among the people thereon [Amd't I]. . . . 

[6.] That this State having by its Convention which ratified 
the Federal Constitution expressly declared that, among other 
essential rights, " the liberty of conscience and of the press 
cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any 
authority of the United States," ... it would mark a reproach- 
ful inconsistency and criminal degeneracy, if an indifference 
were now shown to the palpable violation of one of the rights 
thus declared. . . . 

[7.] That the good people of this Commonwealth having 
ever felt and continuing to feel the most sincere affection for 
their bretheren of the other States . . . the General Assembly 
doth solemnly appeal to the like dispositions of the other States, 
in confidence that they will concur with this Commonwealth in 
declaring, as it does hereby declare, that the acts aforesaid are 
unconstitutional ; and that the necessary and proper measures 
will be taken by each for cooperating with this State, in main- 
taining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved 
to the States respectively, or to the people. 

[8.] That the Governor be desired to transmit a copy of the 
foregoing resolutions to the Executive authority of each of the 



2o8 The New Republic 

other States, with a request that the same may be communi- 
cated to the Legislature thereof ; and that a copy be furnished 
to each of the Senators and Representatives representing this 
State in the Congress of the United States. 

The additional resolution adopted by the Kentucky leg- 
islature in 1799, after the unfavorable response to the 
resolutions of 1798, reads: 

Resolved, . , . That if those who administer the General 
Government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that 
compact [the Constitution], by a total disregard to the special 
delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of the 
State Governmerits, and the creation upon their ruins of a Gen- 
eral Consolidated Government, will be the inevitable consequence 
— that the principle and construction contended for by sundry 
of the state legislatures, that the General Government is the ex- 
clusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop 
nothing [short] of despotism^ since the discretion of those who 
administer the government, and not the Constitutio7i, would be 
the measure of their powers : That the several states who formed 
that instrument being sovereign and independent, have the un- 
questionable right to judge of the infraction ; and. That a Nul- 
lification by those sovereigjities , of all unauthorized acts done ujider 
color of that i?istrume?it is the rightful remedy : That this Com- 
monwealth does, under the most deliberate reconsideration, 
declare, that the said Alien and Sedition Laws are, in their 
opinion, palpable violations of the said Constitution ; . . . That 
although this commonwealth, as a party to the federal compact, 
will bow to the laws of the Union, yet, it does, at the same 
[time] declare, that it will not now, or ever hereafter, cease to 
oppose in a constitutional manner, every attempt at what quar- 
ter soever offered, to violate that compact. And, finally, in order 
that no pretext or arguments may be drawn from a supposed 
acquiescence, on the part of this Commonwealth in the consti- 
tutionality of those laws, and be thereby used as precedents for 
similar future violations of the Federal compact — this Common- 
wealth does now enter against them its solemn PROTEST. 



Federalists and Repiiblieans 209 

Both Jefferson and Madison lived to a great age, and 
many years after the bitter contests of the first quarter of 
a century of our country's history, each gave his explana- 
tion of the purpose of the famous Kentucky and Virginia 
Resolutions. Jefferson wrote in a letter to J. C. Brecken- 
ridge, December 11, 1821 : 

At the time when the Republicans of our country were so 
much alarmed at the proceedings of the Federal ascendency in 
Congress, in the Executive and the Judiciary departments, it 
became a matter of serious consideration how head could be 
made against their enterprises on the Constitution. The lead- 
ing Republicans in Congress found themselves of no use there, 
browbeaten as they were by a bold and overwhelming majority. 
They concluded to retire from that field, take a stand in their 
state legislatures, and endeavor there to arrest their [Federalists] 
progress. The Alien and Sedition Laws furnished the particular 
occasion.. The sympathy between Virginia and Kentucky was 
more cordial and more intimately confidential than between any 
other two States of republican policy. Mr. Madison came into 
the Virginia legislature. I was then in the Vice-Presidency, and 
could not leave my station ; but your father. Col. Nicholas, 
and myself happening to be together, the engaging the coopera- 
tion of Kentucky in an energetic protestation against the con- 
stitutionality of those laws became a subject of consultation. 
Those gentlemen pressed me strongly to sketch resolutions for 
that purpose, your father undertaking to introduce them into 
that legislature, with a solemn assurance, which I strictly re- 
quired, that it should not be known from what quarter they 
came. I drew and delivered them to him, and in keeping their 
origin secret he fulfilled his pledge of honor. 

Ten years' later (March 2J , 1831) the aged Madison 
wrote to James Robertson : 

The veil which was originally over the draft of the resolutions 
offered in 1798 to the Virg^ Assembly having been long since 
removed, I may say in answer to your enquiries that it was 



210 



The Nezv Republic 



[they were] penned by me. . . . With respect to the terms fol- 
lowing the term '' unconstitutional " — viz., ''not law, but null, 
void and of no force or effect," which were stricken out of the 
7^^ resolution, my memory cannot positively decide whether 
they were or were not in the original draft. . . . On the pre- 
sumption that they were in the draft as it went from me, I am 
confident they must have been regarded only as giving accumu- 
lated emphasis to the declaration that the alien and sedition 
acts had in the opinion of the Assembly violated the Constitu- 
tion of the U.S., and not that the addition of them could annul 
the acts or sanction a resistance of them. The Resolution was 
expressly declaratory, and proceeding from the Legislature 
only,^ which was not even a party to the Constitution, could be 
declaratory of opinion only. 



[205] 



A few weeks after the publication of the Kentucky and 
Virginia Resolutions, Washington, greatly disturbed over 
the attacks on the administration of his Federalist suc- 
cessor, John Adams, and alarmed by language of a state 
legislature which spoke of acts of Congress as "not law 
but altogether void and of no force," and " palpable in- 
fractions of the Constitution," wrote to ex-Governor 
Patrick Henry of Virginia, urging him to run for a seat 
in Congress or in his state legislature, where he could 
help rescue the country from the pending evil. 



Confidential 



Mount Vernon, 15 Jan. 1799 



Dear Sir 

At the threshold of this letter, I ought to make an apology 
for its contents. ... It would be a waste of time to bring to 



1 The astute Madison saw at the time the inconsistency of protest 
by a State Legislahire. He wrote to Jefferson, December 29, 1798: 
" Have you ever considered thoroughly the distinction between the 
power of the State and that of the Legislature, on questions relating to 
the federal pact ? On the supposition that the former is clearly the 
ultimate Judge of infractions, it does not follow that the latter is the 



Federalists and Republicans 21 1 

the view of a person of your observation (S: discernment, the 
endeavors of a certain party among us, to disquiet the Public 
mind with unfounded alarms ; — to arraign every act of the 
Administration ; — to set the People at varience with their 
Government ; — and to embarrass all its measures. — Equally 
useless would it be, to predict what must be the inevitable con- 
sequences of such policy if it cannot be arrested. — 

Unfortunately, and extremely do I regret it, the State of Vir- 
ginia has taken the lead in this opposition. ... It has been said, 
that a great mass of the Citizens of this State are well affected, 
notwithstanding, to the General Government and the Union ; — 
and I am willing to believe it — nay do believe it. . . . But at 
such a crisis as this, when everything dear & valuable to us is 
assailed ; when this Party hang upon the Wheels of Govern- 
ment as a dead weight, opposing every measure that is calculated 
for defence & self preservation ; — abetting the nefarious views 
of another Nation [France], upon our rights ; — when measures 
are systematically and pertenaciously pursued, which must even- 
tually dissolve the Union or produce coercion — I say, when 
these things have become so obvious, ought characters who are 
best able to rescue their Country from the pending evils to re- 
main at home ? Rather, ought they not to come forward, and 
by their talents and influence stand in the breach wh. such con- 
duct has made on the Peace and happiness of this country, and 
oppose the widening of it ? . . . 

I come now, my good Sir, to the object of my letter — 
which is — to express a hope, and an earnest wish, that you 
wd. come forward at the ensuing Elections (if not for Congress, 
which you may think would take you too long from home) as a 
Candidate for representative in the General Assembly of this 
Commonwealth.^ . . . 

legitimate organ, especially as a Convention was the organ by which 
the compact was made." — Works, Vol. VI, p. 328, note. 

1 Henry took Washington's advice and was elected in the spring of 
1799 to the Virginia Assembly; but he died (June 6, 1799) before tak- 
ing his seat. He had previously declined the ofifices of Secretary of 
State (1795), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1795), Governor of 
Virginia (1796), and Minister to France (1799). 



2,12 The Nezv Republic 

If I have erroneously supposed that your sentiments on 
these subjects are in unison with mine ; — or if I have assumed 
a liberty which the occasion does not warrant, I must conclude 
as I began, with praying that my motives may be received as an 
apology ; and that my fear, that the tranquillity of the Union, 
and of this State in particular, is hastening to an awful crisis, 
have extorted them from me. 

With great, and very sincere regard and respect, — I am — 

Dear sir 

Your Most Obedt & Very H'^'^ Serv* 

Patrick Henry Esq^ 

The Jeffersonian Policies 

53. The dis- The Completion of the Constitution of the United States 
Columbia ^ ^^^ unexpectedly celebrated by the first voyage of the 
river, 1792 American flag around the world. On September 23, 1787, 
V-^^\ Captains Gray and Kendrick sailed from Boston Harbor 
in the ships Columbia and Washington, and doubling Cape 
Horn, collected furs on the northwestern coast of America 
for the Chinese trade. Gray, in the Cohmibia, sailed to 
Canton, and continuing his westward journey around the 
globe, brought his cargo of tea into Boston Harbor to the 
sound of a rousing welcome on August 10, 1790.^ He 
started to repeat his profitable voyage in September, 1 790, 
fortified by letters from Governor Hancock of Massachu- 
setts and President Washington ; and, v^hile on the north- 
western coast, discovered and sailed into the mouth of the 
broad river which bears his good ship's name. The dis- 
covery of the Columbia River established the earliest and 
best claim of the United States to the great Oregon region. 
The following account is from the log book of the Columbia : 

1 A charming narrative of the voyages of the Columbia, illustrated by 
valuable drawings, was published by the Reverend E. G. Porter in the 
New England Magazine for June, 1892, the Oregon centennial year. 



Federalists aiici Republicans 213 

May 7**" 1792 — Being within six miles of land, saw an en- 
trance in the same, which had a very good appearance of a 
harbor. . . . Made sail on the ship; stood in for the shore. We 
soon saw from our mast-head a passage in between the sand- 
bars. ... At five p.m. came to in five fathoms water, sandy 
bottom with a safe harbor, well sheltered from the sea by long 
sand-bars and spits. Our latitude observed this day was 
46° 58' north. 

May I o^'' — Fresh breezes and pleasant weather ; many 
natives alongside. At noon all the canoes left us. . . . 

May II*'' — ... At 4 a.m. saw the entrance of our desired 
port bearing east-south-east, distance six leagues. ... At eight 
a.m. run in east-north-east between the breakers, having from 
five to seven fathoms of . water. When we were over the bar, 
we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we 
steered. Many canoes came alongside. ... At i p.m. the en- 
trance between the bars bore west-south-west, distance ten miles ; 
the north side of the river a half a mile distant from the ship ; 
the south side of the same two and a half miles' distance ; a vil- 
lage on the north side of the river, west by north, distance three 
quarters of a mile. Vast numbers of natives came alongside ; 
people employed in pumping the salt water out of our water 
casks, in order to fill with fresh, while the ship floated in. . . . 

May 1 4"' — Fresh gales and cloudy ; many natives along- 
side ; at noon weighed and came to sail, standing up the river 
north-east by east ; we found the channel very narrow. At four 
p.m. we had sailed upwards of twelve or fifteen miles, when the 
channel was so very narrow that it was almost impossible to 
keep in it, having from three to eighteen fathoms of water, 
sandy bottom. At half-past four the ship took ground, but she 
did not stay long before she came off, without any assistance. 
We backed her off stern foremost, into three fathoms. . . . The 
jolly-boat was sent to sound the channel out, but found it not 
navigable any farther up ; so, of course, we must have taken 
the wrong channel. So ends, with rainy weather ; many natives 
alongside. . . . 

May 19'*" — Fresh wind and clear weather. Early a number 
of canoes came alongside ; seamen and tradesmen employed in 



2 1 4 The New Republic 

their various departments. Captain Gray gave this river the 
name of Columbia'' s Rive?^ and the north side of the entrance 
Cape Hancock ; the south, Adafns's Poijit. 

May 2 o"' — ... At one p.m. (being full sea), took up the anchor 
and made sail, standing down river. ... At five p.m. we were 
out, clear of all the bars and in twenty fathoms water. ... At 
eight Cape Hancock bore south-east, distant three leagues. . . . 

Captain Gray's letter from President Washington reads 
as follows : 

To all Empe?'ors, Ki?tgs, Sovereign princes, State and Regents 
and to their respective officer's civil and military, and to all others 
'who77i it 7nay coJicern : 

I, George Washington, President of the United States of 
America, do make known that Robert Gray, Captain of a ship 
called the Columbia, of the burden of about 230 tons, is a citi- 
zen of the United States, and that the said ship which he com- 
mands belongs to the citizens of the United States ; and as I 
wish that the said Robert Gray may prosper in all his lawful 
affairs, I do request all the before mentioned, and each of them 
separately, when the said Robert Gray shall arrive with his 
vessel and cargo, that they will be pleased to receive him with 
kindness and treat him in a becoming manner, &c., and thereby 
I shall consider myself obliged. 

Sept. 16, 1790 — New York City 

Ge° Washington 

President 
Thomas Jefferson 
Secretary of State 

54. A peti- The transfer of the Louisiana territory from France to 
habitants^ of" ^^ United States in 1803 has been called "the largest 

Louisiana, transaction in real estate that the world has ever seen." It 

1804 

[2101 '^^^ ^"^y doubled the original area of our country but by 
its incorporation of alien peoples it gave rise to serious 
problems of government. The third article of the treaty 



Federalists mid Republicans 215 

read : *' The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be in- 
corporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted 
as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Fed- 
eral Constitution to the enjoyment of all the rights, advan- 
tages, and immunities of citizens of the United States." . . . 
But the law passed in March, 1 804, by Congress, providing 
for the territorial government was so poor a promise of the 
fulfillment of this pledge that the following petition was 
forwarded by the people of the territory to Congress. The 
author was Edward Livingston, younger brother of Robert 
R. Livingston, who, with special envoy Monroe, had nego- 
tiated the purchase treaty. Edward Livingston removed to 
Louisiana soon after the purchase, and did the people of 
Louisiana a lasting service by recasting their old Spanish 
and French laws into a code suitable for a state of the 
American Union. 

We, the subscribers, planters, merchants, and other inhabit- 
ants of Louisiana, respectfully approach the Legislature of the 
United States with a memorial of our rights, a remonstrance 
against certain laws which contravene them, and a petition for 
that redress to which the laws of nature, sanctioned by positive 
stipulation, have entitled us. . . . 

Persuaded that a free people would acquire territory only to 
extend the blessings of freedom, that an enlightened nation 
would never destroy those principles on which its Government 
was founded, and that their Representatives would disdain 
to become the instruments of oppression, we calculated with 
certainty that their first act of sovereignty would be a commu- 
nication of all the blessings they enjoyed. ... It was early 
understood that we were to be American Citizens ; this satisfied 
our wishes. . . . We knew that it was impossible to be citizens 
of the United States, without enjoying a personal freedom, pro- 
tection for property, and, above all, the privileges of a free 
Representative Government. . . . 



2i6 TJic Nciv Republic 

With a firm persuasion that these engagements [of the 
treaty] were to be fulfilled, we passed under your jurisdiction 
with a joy bordering on enthusiasm. . . . Even the evils of a 
military and absolute authority were acquiesced in, because 
it indicated an eagerness to complete the transfer, and place 
beyond the reach of accident the union we mutually desired. . . . 
But we cannot conceal, we ought not to dissemble, that the 
first project presented for the government of this country 
tended to lessen our enthusiasm . , . and to fix our attention 
on present evils, while it rendered us less sanguine as to the 
future. . . . 

Disavowing any language but that of respectful remonstrance, 
disdaining any other but that which befits a manly assertion of 
our rights, we pray leave to examine the law for erecting Loui- 
siana into two Territories and providing for the temporary gov- 
ernment thereof, to compare its provisions with our rights, and 
its whole scope with the letter and spirit of the treaty which 
binds us to the United States.^ 

The first section erects the country south of the -^^^^ degree 
into a Territory of the United States, by the name of the Territory 
of Orleans. The second gives us a Governor appointed for 
three years by the President of the United States. The fourth 
vests in him and in a council, also chosen by the President, all 
Legislative power, subject to revision by Congress. . . . And 
a fifth establishes a judiciary ; . . . The judges of the superior 
court are appointed by the President, to continue in office 
four years. 

This is a summary of our constitution . . . and this is the 
promise performed, which was made by our first magistrate in 
your name " that you would receive us as brothers, and hasten 
to extend to us a participation in those invaluable rights which 
had formed the basis of your unexampled prosperity." . . . 

Is it necessary for us to demonstrate that this act does not 
" incorporate us in the Union," that it vests us with none of the 
" rights," gives us no " advantages," and deprives us of all the 
" immunities " of American citizens ? . . . 

1 The text of the treaty can be found in the Old South Leaflets, 
Vol. VI, No. 128. 



Federalists and Republicans 217 

A Governor is to be placed over us whom we have not chosen, 
whom we do not even know. . . . This Governor is vested with 
all executive and almost unlimited legislative power. . . . 

Taxation without representation, an obligation to obey laws 
without any voice in their formation, the undue influence of the 
executive upon legislative proceedings, and a dependent judiciary, 
formed, we believe very prominent articles in the list of griev- 
ances complained of by the United States at the commencement 
of their glorious contest for freedom. . . . They formed, as your 
country then unanimously asserted, the only rational basis on 
which Government could rest. . . . 

Were the patriots who composed your councils mistaken in 
their political principles ? Did the heroes who died in their defence 
seal a false creed with their blood ? . . . Do political axioms on 
the Atlantic become problems when transferred to the shores 
of the Mississippi ? Where, we ask respectfully, where is the 
circumstance that is to exclude us from a participation in those 
rights ? . . . Many of us are native citizens of the United States 
who have participated in that kind of knowledge which is there 
spread among the people ; the others generally are men who 
will not suffer by a comparison with the population of any other 
colony, . . . For our love of order and submission to the laws 
we can confidently appeal to the whole history of our settlement. 
. . , Many individuals possessing a property and rank, which 
suppose a liberal education, were among the first settlers. . . . 
Their descendants now respectfully call for the evidence which 
proves that they have so far degenerated as to become totally 
incompetent to the task of legislation. . . . 

Deeply impressed, therefore, with a persuasion that our rights 
need only be stated to be recognized and allowed ; that the 
highest glory of a free nation is a communication of the blessings 
of freedom ; and that its best reputation is derived from a sacred 
regard to treaties ; we pray you, Representatives of the people, 
to consult your own fame and our happiness, by a prompt atten- 
tion to our prayer. . . . Annexed to your country by the course 
of political events, it depends upon you to determine whether 
we shall pay the cold homage of reluctant subjects, or render 
the free allegiance of citizens. . . . 



2l8 



TJie New Republic 



We, therefore, respectfully pray that so much of the law above- 
mentioned, as provides for the temporary government of this 
country, as divides it into two Territories, and prohibits the im- 
portation of slaves, be repealed. And that prompt and efficacious 
measures may be taken to incorporate the inhabitants of Louisi- 
ana into the Union of the United States, and admit them to all 
the rights, privileges, and immunities, of the citizens thereof. . . . 

P. Sauve 

L. Debigny 

Destrehan 



55. The 
Lewis and 
Clark expe- 
dition, 1803- 
1806 

[210] 



About three months before the Louisiana territory was 
purchased from France, Jefferson, by a special message, 
persuaded Congress to sanction and support a scientific 
exploring expedition from the Missouri River to the Pacific 
Coast — a scheme in which he had been interested for 
twenty years. ^ Jefferson selected Meriwether Lewis, his 
private secretary, to lead the expedition. His instructions 
to Lewis are contained in a letter of June 20, 1803 : 

To Meriwether Leivis, Esquire^ Captain of the i'* 7'egiment of 
ififantry of the United States of America : Your situation as 
Secretary of the President of the United States has made you 
acquainted with the objects of my confidential message of 
Jan. 18, 1803, to the legislature. You have seen the act they 
passed, which, tho' expressed in general terms, was meant to 
sanction those objects, and you are appointed to carry them into 
execution. 

Instruments for ascertaining by celestial observations the 
geography of the country thro' which you will pass, have already 
been provided, light articles for barter, & presents among the 
Indians, arms for your attendants, say for from 10 to 12 men, 
boats, tents, & other travelling apparatus, with ammunition, 

1 In 1783 Jefferson had proposed to George Rogers Clark, the hero 
of Vincennes, to head an expedition " for exploring the Country from 
the Mississippi to California." — Original Journals of the Lewis and 
Clark Expedition, ed. R. G. Thwaites, Vol. I, p. xx. 



Fedei'alists and Republicans 219 

medicine, surgical instruments «&: provisions you will have pre- 
pared with such aids as the Secretary at War can yield in his 
department ; & from him also you will receive authority to en- 
gage among our troops, by voluntary agreement, the number 
of attendants above mentioned, over whom you, as their com- 
manding officer, are invested with all the powers the laws give 
in such a case. . . . 

Your mission has been communicated to the Ministers here 
from France, Spain, & Great Britain, and through them to their 
governments : and such assurances given them as to it's objects 
as we trust will satisfy them.^ . . . 

The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, 
& such principal stream of it, as, by it's course & communication 
with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, may offer the most direct 
& practicable water communication across this continent, for the 
purpose of commerce. . . . 

The commerce which may be carried on with the people in- 
habiting the line you will pursue, renders a knolege [knowledge] 
of these people important. You will therefore endeavor to make 
yourself acquainted . . . with the names of the nations & their 
numbers ; the extent and limits of their possessions ; their re- 
lations with other tribes or nations ; their language, traditions, 
monuments ; their ordinary occupations in agriculture, fishing, 
hunting, war, arts, & the implements for these ; their food, cloth- 
ing, and domestic accomodations ; the diseases prevalent among 
them, and the remedies they use ; moral & physical circumstances 
which distinguish them from the tribes we know ; peculiarities 
in their laws, customs, and dispositions ; the articles of commerce 
they may need or furnish, & to what extent. . . . 

Other object[s] worthy of notice will be the soil & face of 
the country, it's growth & vegetable productions ; especially those 
not of the U.S. ; the animals of the country generally, & espe- 
cially those not known in the U.S. ; the remains and accounts 
of any which may [be] deemed rare or extinct; the mineral 

1 The student must bear in mind that until we took over the Louisiana 
territory from France, some time after this letter was written, all of the 
land west of the Mississippi was in the hands or subject to the claims 
of the foreign powers mentioned here by Jefferson. 



220 The New Republic 

productions of every kind ; but more particularly metals, lime- 
stone, pit coal & saltpetre ; . . . Volcanic appearances ; climate 
as characterized by the thermometer ... by the winds prevailing 
at different seasons, the dates at which particular plants put forth 
or lose their flowers, or leaf, times of appearance of particular 
birds, reptiles or insects. . . . 

In all your intercourse with the natives treat them in the most 
friendly «S: conciliatory manner which their own conduct will ad- 
mit ; allay all jealousies as to the object of your journey ; satisfy 
them of it's innocence, make them acquainted with the position, 
extent, character, peaceable & commercial dispositions of the 
U.S. of our will to be neighborly, friendly & useful to them. . . . 

Should you reach the Pacific Ocean , . . inform yourself of 
the circumstances which may decide whether the furs of those 
parts may not be collected as advantageously at the head of the 
Missouri as at Nootka sound or any other point of that coast ; 
& that trade be consequently conducted through the Missouri & 
U.S. more beneficially than by the circumnavigation now practised. 

On your arrival on that coast endeavor to learn if there be 
any port within your reach frequented by the sea-vessels of any 
nation, and to send two of your trusty people back by sea . . . 
with a copy of your notes. And should you be of opinion that 
the return of your party by the way they went will be eminently 
dangerous, then ship the whole & return by sea by way of 
Cape Horn or the Cape of good Hope as you shall be able. As 
you will be without money, clothes, or provisions, you must 
endeavor to use the credit of the U.S. to obtain them ; for 
which purpose open letters of credit shall be furnished you 
authorizing you to draw on the Executive of the U.S. or any of 
its officers in any part of the world. . . . 

Your observations are to be taken with great pains and accu- 
racy, to be entered distinctly, & intelligibly for others as well 
as yourself, . . . several copies of these . . . should be made at 
leisure times, & put into the care of the most trustworthy of 
your attendants, to guard by multiplying them, against the acci- 
dental losses to which they will be exposed. A further guard 
would be that one of these copies be written on the paper of the 
birch, as less liable to injury from damp than common paper. . . . 



Federalists and Republicans 221 

To provide, on the accident of your death, against anarchy, 
dispersion, & the consequent danger to your party, and total 
failure of the enterprise, you are hereby authorized, by any instru- 
ment signed & written in your hand, to name the person among 
them who shall succeed to the command on your decease. . . . 

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, this 20*'' day 

of June 1803 

Th. Jefferson 

Pr. U. S. of America 

John Ordway, first sergeant of the expedition, wrote his 
parents just before the company started from camp at the 
mouth of the Missouri River : 

Camp River Dubois, April the 8*^, 1804 
Honored Parents : I now embrace this opportunity of writing 
to you once more to let you know where I am and where I am 
going. I am well thank God and in high Spirits. I am now 
on an expedition to the westward, with Capt. Lewis and Capt. 
Clark, who are appointed by the President of the united States 
to go on an Expedition through the interior parts of North 
America, we are to ascend the Missouri River with a boat as 
far as it is navigable and then go by land to the western ocean, 
if nothing prevents. This party consists of 25 picked men of 
the armey and country likewise and I am so happy as to be one 
of them picked men from the armey and I and all the party are 
if we live to return to receive our discharge when ever we re- 
turn again to the united States if we choose it. This place is 
on the Mississippi River opposite to the mouth of the Missouri 
River and we are to start in ten days up the Missouri River, 
this has been our winter quarters, we expect to be gone 18 
months or two years, we are to receive a great reward for this 
expedition 15 dollars a month ^ and at least 400 ackers [acres] 

1 In a draft of receipts for compensation for the expedition John 
Ordway's name appears first, acknowledging the receipt of $266.66 for 
thirty-three months ten days' services (January i, 1804, to October 10, 
1806) at eight dollars a month. The privates received five dollars a 
month. — Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedi- 
tion, Vol. VII, p. 360. 



222 



The New Republic 



of first rate land and if we make great discoveries as we expect 
the united States has promised to make us great rewards, more 
than we are promised. . . . 

I have received no letters since Betseys yet but will write 
next winter if I have a chance. 

Yours &c. 

John Ordway Segt. 



The War of 1812 

The great struggle between France and England, which 
lasted with scarcely a breathing space from 1793 to 181 5, 
involved all the nations of western Europe and their colo- 
nies in the distant parts of the earth. It was only in the 
ships of the United States, under a neutral flag, that the 
valuable food products of the French, Dutch, and Spanish 
colonies could be brought to European ports. Our exports 
increased from $20,000,000 in 1790 to $108,000,000 in 

1807, or three and one-half times as rapidly as our popu- 
lation ; and the tonnage of vessels engaged in foreign trade 
rose from 346,000 in 1790 to 984,000 in 18 10. Each of 
the two great belligerent powers tried to break up this trade 
in so far as it benefited the other. Each called our com- 
merce with the other "war in disguise against itself." 
Each issued a series of decrees and orders hostile to our 
commerce.! And each committed acts of violence in the 
forcible stoppage of our ships and impressment of our 
crews that were ample cause for war. The following ex- 
amples show what indignities the Americans suffered years 
before they were provoked to the formal declaration of war : 

1 At the request of the Senate, Secretary of State Madison compiled 
a list of acts and decrees hostile to our commerce passed by the British, 
French, and Spanish governments between March, 1793, and October, 

1808. He enumerates thirty-one British and eighteen French instances. 
— American State Papers, " Foreign Relations," Vol. Ill, pp. 262-292. 



Federalists afid Republicans 223 

Charleston, South Carolina, June 12, 1805 
To the ho7iorable Ja77ies Madison^ Esquire^ Secretary of State 
of the United States. The nie^tioi'ial of the P^-esident a?id £)irecto?'s 
of the South Carolina Jjisiirance Company, and of the merchants 
and others interested i?i the commerce of the city of Charleston, 
respectfully showeth : 

That your memorialists are deeply affected by the recent cap- 
ture, at the very entrance of this port, of the American ship 
Two Friends, by a French privateer. This event has excited 
among all classes of citizens, the strongest sensations, not only 
because the said ship was captured without any color of pre- 
tence, within sight of land, but because she is our only regular 
London trader, and had on board a full supply of spring and 
summer goods. . . . Your memorialists are authorized to add 
(although the fact be not detailed in the protest) that it appears, 
from undoubted authority, that the magnitude of the prize was 
the sole inducement of the above-mentioned capture, the captors 
having said that they would release the Two Friends, in the 
event of their falling in with any other valuable prize, which 
might be more worthy of their notice. 

This most extraordinary capture, in direct violation of our 
treaty with France (as appears by the accompanying docu- 
ments) has already been followed by events no less alarming, 
our harbor being at this moment completely blockaded by three 
French privateers (and more are daily expected), which examine 
all vessels coming in and going out of this port, and either de- 
tain or release them, according as their value excites the cupidity 
of the cruisers. 

This degrading state of our harbor has necessarily raised the 
premiums of insurance, thus forcing additional sums from the 
pockets of our citizens, has advanced the price of every com- 
modity, and created a distressing stagnation of our exports; for 
the merchants, not receiving their goods from abroad, are in- 
capacitated from purchasing the produce of the country. Among 
these deplorable effects of the defenceless and humiliating con- 
dition of our commerce may be, moreover, enumerated the im- 
mense loss of duties, those in the Tivo Friends alone being 
estimated by the collector at forty-five thousand dollars. 



224 T^^^ iV^w Republic 

Your memorialists have the best reasons for believing that 
this early success, experienced by these French privateers, will 
immediately allure others in swarms to our coast and bar, to 
the total ruin of private mercantile concerns, and the most fatal 
defalcation of the public revenue. Your memorialists have no 
less ground for apprehending that British cruisers, availing 
themselves of the absence of domestic protection, will, under 
the color of expelling the French, assume and occupy their 
ground, and either retain us in the same degraded state, harass- 
ing our vessels by searches and detention, or subject us to the 
disgraceful and mortifying obligations of gratitude for alien 
succor and relief. 

Your memorialists are the more alarmed at these depredations 
because much valuable property is still expected this summer 
from other quarters than London, and considerable importations 
will be looked for in the fall, for our winter supplies. . . . 

Your memorialists, having thus exhibited but an imperfect 
view of their ruinous, unprotected and degraded situation, rely 
with confidence on the prompt interposition of the President, to 
obtain, by representations to the ministers of France and Spain 
(in the event of the Tivo Friefids being carried to a Spanish 
port) restitution of the said ship and her cargo, and to cause a 
stop to be put to similar spoliations. . . . 

Thomas Corbett, President of the South Carolina 
Insurance Company, and io6 others 

The wanton attack of the British ship Leopar'd on the 
American frigate Chesapeake off Hampton Roads, Vir- 
ginia, June 22, 1807, in which three men were killed 
and eighteen wounded (including the Commodore, James 
Barron) may be called the opening act of the War of 1 8 1 2. 
The British government later repudiated this act, recalled 
Admiral Berkeley, on whose authority it had been com- 
mitted, restored the three American sailors taken from 
the Chesapeake^ and paid an indemnity for the killed 
and wounded. The following extracts are from papers 



Federalists aiid Republicans 225 

submitted by Robert Smith, Secretary of the Navy, to 
Thomas Blount, chairman of the Committee of Congress 
on Aggressions, relating to " the outrage committed on 
the frigate Chesapeake.'' 

British Consul's Office, Norfolk (Va) March 6, 1807 
Sir: 

The men named in the margin [Ware, Martin, Strachan, 

Little] deserted sometime since from His Majesty's ship 

Melampus, in Hampton Roads, by running away with her gig, 

and the first three are stated to have entered at the rendezvous, 

now open here, for the enlistment of seamen in the service of 

the United States. As the Melampus is at present in Hampton 

Roads, I submit to you, sir, the propriety of your directing these 

men (should they have entered for your service) to be returned 

to their duty on board His Majesty's ship before mentioned. I 

have the honor to remain, with perfect truth and respect, sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

. John Hamilton 

To Captam Decatur 

The cases of the alleged deserters were investigated, and 
James Barron, commander of the CJicsapcake^ reported to 
Secretary Smith, April 7, that Ware, Martin, and Strachan 
v^ere all Americans who had been ''pressed" on board 
the Melampus at various times and places, and that they 
had escaped to the shore in the captain's gig, amid '' a 
brisk fire of musketry," while an entertainment on board 
was diverting the attention of the officers. The sequel is 
told in Barron's letter to Smith, June 23, 1807, written 
from on board the battered Chesapeake after her return 
to the bay. 

Sir: 

Yesterday at 6 a.m. the wind became favorable, and knowing 
your anxiety that the ship should sail with all possible despatch, 
we weighed from our station in Hampton Roads and stood to 



226 The New Republic 

sea. In Lynnhaven bay we passed two British men of war, one 
of them the Bellona^ the other the Melampus ; their colors flying 
and their appearance friendly. Some time afterwards, we ob- 
served one of the two line-of-battle ships that lay off Cape 
Henry, to get under way, and stand to sea; at this time the 
wind became light, and it was not until near four in the after- 
noon that the ship under way came within hail. Cape Henry 
then bearing north-west by west, distance three leagues, the 
communication which appeared to be her commander's object 
for speaking the Chesapeake^ he said he would send on board ; 
on which I ordered the Chesapeake to be hove to for his con- 
venience. On the arrival of the officer he presented me with 
the enclosed paper ^ from the captain of the Leopard ... to 
which I gave the enclosed answer [denying any knowledge of 
the deserters and refusing to have the crew of any ship he com- 
manded " mustered by any but their own officers "], and was 
waiting for his reply. About this time I observed some appear- 
ance of a hostile nature, and said to Captain Gordon that it 
was possible they were serious, and requested him to have his 
men sent to their quarters with as little noise as possible, not 
using those ceremonies which we should have done with an 
avowed enemy, as I fully supposed their arrangements were 
more menace than anything serious. Captain Gordon immedi- 
ately gave the orders to the men and officers to go to quarters, 
and have all things in readiness ; but before a match could be 
lighted, or the quarter-bill of any division examined, or the 
lumber on the gun-deck, such as sails, cables, &:c. could be 
cleared, the commander of the Leopard hailed ; I could not 
hear what he said, and was talking to him, as I supposed, 
when she commenced a heavy fire, which did great execution.^ 

1 An order of June i, 1807, published by Admiral Berkeley, who 
was in command of the British ships in American waters, authorizing 
all captains to search the Chesapeake on the high seas for the deserters 
from the British ships. 

2 The commission appointed to examine the damage done the 
Chesapeake reported " twenty-two round shot in her hull," " fore and 
main masts incapable of being made sea-worthy," " mizzen mast badly 
wounded," together with great laceration of sails. 



Federalists and Republicans 227 

It is distressing to me to acknowledge, that I found that the 
advantage they had gained over our unprepared and unsuspicious 
state, did not warrant a longer opposition ; nor should I have 
exposed this ship and crew to so galling a fire had it not been 
with the hope of getting the gun-deck clear, so as to have made 
a more favorable defence ; consequently our resistance was but 
feeble. In about twenty minutes after I ordered the colors to 
be struck, and sent Lieutenant Smith on board the Leopard to 
inform her commander that I considered the Chesapeake her 
prize. To this message I received no answer; the Leopards 
boat soon after came on board, and the officer who came in 
her demanded the muster book. I replied the ship and books 
were theirs, and that if he expected to see the men he must find 
them. They called on the purser, who delivered his book, and 
the men were examined ; and three men demanded at Washing- 
ton, and one man more were taken away. . . . 

I called a council of our officers and requested their opinion 
relative to the conduct which it was now our duty to pursue. 
The result was that the ship should return to Hampton Roads, 
and there wait your further orders. Enclosed you have a list of 
the unfortunate killed and wounded, as also a statement of the 
damage sustained in the hull, spars, and rigging of the ship. . . . 

With great respect, I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient 
servant ja^es Barron 

Jefferson and Madison attempted to meet the British 57. "Mr. 
and French aggressions by the '' peaceful war " of embargo De^cember^'i' 
and non-intercourse acts. It was Henry Clay, Speaker of i^n 
the twelfth Congress, and his band of ''war-hawks" who I^^^l 
forced the hand of the administration. The following extract 
is from the official report of Clay's speech of December 3 1 , 
1 8 1 1 , on the bill to increase the army of the United States : 

Mr. C. [Clay] proceeded more particularly to inquire into the 
object of the force. That object, he understood, to be war, and 
war with Great Britain. . . . What are we to gain by war, has 
been emphatically asked. In reply, he would ask, what are we 



228 The New Republic 

not to lose by peace ? — commerce, character, a nation's best 
treasure, honor ! If pecuniary considerations alone are to govern, 
there is sufficient motive for the war. Our revenue is reduced, 
by the operation of the belligerent edicts, to about six million 
of dollars, according to the Secretary of the Treasury's report. 
The year preceding the embargo [1807] it was sixteen. Take 
away the Orders in Council, it will again mount up to sixteen 
millions. By continuing, therefore, in peace, if the mongrel state 
in which we are deserves that denomination, we lose annually, 
in revenue only, ten millions of dollars. Gentlemen will say, 
repeal the law of non-importation. He contended that, if the 
United States were capable of that perfidy, the revenue would 
not be restored to its former state, the Orders in Council con- 
tinuing. Without an export trade, which those orders prevent, 
inevitable ruin would ensue, if we imported as freely as we did 
prior to the embargo. A nation that carries on an import trade 
without an export trade to support it, must, in the end, be as 
certainly bankrupt as the individual would be, who incurred an 
annual expenditure without an income. 

He had no disposition to swell, or dwell upon the catalogue 
of injuries from England. He could not, however, overlook the 
impressment of our seamen ; an aggression upon which he never 
reflected without feelings of indignation, which would not allow 
him appropriate language to describe its enormity. Not content 
with seizing upon all our property, which falls within her rapa- 
cious grasp, the personal rights of our countrymen — rights which 
forever ought to be sacred, are trampled upon and violated. . . . 
We are required to bear the actual cuffs of her [England's] 
arrogance that we may escape a chimerical French subjugation. 
We are invited, conjured to drink the potion of British poison 
actually presented to our lips, that we may avoid the imperial 
[Napoleon's] dose prepared by perturbed imaginations. We are 
called on to submit to debasement, dishonor, and disgrace — to 
bow the neck to royal insolence, as a course of preparation for 
manly resistance to Gallic invasion ! What nation, what individual 
was ever taught, in the schools of ignominious submission, the 
patriotic lessons of freedom and independence? . . . It was not 
by submission that our fathers achieved our independence. The 



Fede7\ilists and Republicans 229 

patriotic wisdom that placed you, Mr. Chairman, said Mr, C, 
under that canopy, penetrated the designs of a corrupt ministry, 
and nobly fronted encroachment on its first appearance. It saw 
beyond the petty taxes, with which it commenced, a long train 
of oppressive measures terminating in the total annihilation of 
liberty. . . . For, sir, the career of encroachment is never arrested 
by submission. It will advance while there remains a single 
privilege on which it can operate. 

Gentlemen say that this government is unfit for any war, but 
a war of invasion. What, is it not equivalent to an invasion, if 
the mouths of our harbors and oudets are blocked up, and we 
are denied egress from our own waters ? Or when the burglar 
is at our door, shall we bravely sally forth and repel his felonious 
entrance, or meanly skulk within the cells of the castle .'' 

He contended that the real cause of British aggression, was 
not to distress an enemy but to destroy a rival. . . . She [England] 
sickens at your prosperity, and beholds in your growth — your 
sails spread on every ocean, and your numerous seamen — the 
foundations of a power, which at no very distant day is to make 
her tremble for naval superiority. . . . 

It is said that the effect of the war at home will be a change 
in those who administer the Government, who will be replaced 
by others, who will make a disgraceful peace. He did not believe 
it. . . . He was one, however, who was prepared ... to march 
on in the road of his duty, at all hazards. What ! shall it be said 
that our aiJior patriae is located at these desks — that we pusil- 
lanimously cling to our seats here, rather than boldly vindicate 
the most inestimable rights of the country ? 

After an explicit statement by the British minister in 58. Madi- 
May, 1 8 12, that " Great Britain would not recede from message,^ 
its policy toward neutrals," that is, would not cease to J"^^ ^» ^^^^ 
stop and search American merchant ships on the high I^^^l 
seas, Madison sent a confidential message to Congress, 
in which he reviewed the outrages of Great Britain on 
our commerce, ever since the renewal of her war with 
Napoleon in 1803, ^^^^ recounted the vain efforts made 



230 The New Republic 

by this government to come to an honorable agreement. 
The message concludes : 

Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have 
been heaped upon our country ; and such the crisis which its 
unexampled forbearance and conciliatory efforts have not been 
able to avert. It might at least have been expected, that an en- 
lightened nation, if less urged by moral obligations, or invited by 
friendly disposition on the part of the United States, would have 
found, in its true interest alone, a sufficient motive to respect their 
rights and their tranquillity on the high seas ; that an enlarged 
policy would have favored that free and general circulation of 
commerce in which the British nation is at all times interested, 
and which, in times of war, is the best alleviation of its calamities 
to herself, as well as to other belligerents ; and, more especially, 
that the British Cabinet would not, for the sake of a precarious 
and surreptitious intercourse with hostile markets, have per- 
severed in a course of measures which necessarily put at hazard 
the invaluable market of a great and growing country, disposed 
to cultivate the mutual advantages of an active commerce. 

Other councils have prevailed. Our moderation and concili- 
ation have had no other effect than to encourage perseverance 
and to enlarge pretensions. We behold our sea-faring citizens 
still the daily victims of lawless violence, committed on the great 
and common highway of nations, even within sight of the country 
which owes them protection. We behold our vessels, freighted 
with the products of our soil and industry, or returning with 
the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful desti- 
nations, confiscated by prize courts, no longer the organs of 
public law, but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their 
unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in 
British ports into British fleets, whilst arguments are employed 
in support of these aggressions, which have no foundation but 
in a principle equally supporting a claim to regulate our external 
commerce in all cases whatsoever. 

We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of 
war against the United States ; and on the side of the United 
States, a state of peace towards Great Britain. 



Federalists and Republicans 231 

Whether the United States shall continue passive under these 
progressive usurpations, and these accumulating wrongs, or, 
opposing force to force in defence of their natural rights, shall 
commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer 
of events, avoiding all connexions which might entangle it in 
the contests or views of other Powers, and preserving a constant 
readiness to concur in an honorable re-establishment of peace 
and friendship, is a solemn question, which the Constitution 
wisely confides to the Legislative Department of the Govern- 
ment. In recommending it to their early deliberations, I am 
happy in the assurance, that the decision will be worthy the 
enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a 
powerful nation. . . . 

James Madison 



PART IV. NATIONAL VERSUS 
SECTIONAL INTERESTS 



PART IV. NATIONAL VERSUS 
SECTIONAL INTERESTS 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE GROWTH OF A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 

" The Era of Good Feeling " 

The following extracts from decisions of the Supreme 59. The 
Court, rendered by Chief Justice Marshall and Justice court^nd 
Story, in the cases of Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee (1816), t^e Consti- 

•^' \ n tution, 1816- 

McCulloch vs. Maryland (18 19), and Gibbons vs. Ogden 1824 
(1824), illustrate how judicial interpretation of the Con- [233] 
stitution stretched the meaning of the simple language of 
its clauses, much to the alarm and indignation of the "strict 
constructionists " of Jefferson's following. 

The Constitution of the United States was ordained and 
established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but 
emphatically, as the preamble of the Constitution declares, by 
'' the people of the United States." There can be no doubt 
that it was competent to the people to invest the general gov- 
ernment with all the powers which they might deem proper 
and necessary ; to extend or restrain these powers according to 
their own good pleasure, and to give them a paramount and 
supreme authority. As little doubt can there be, that the people 
had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers 
which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of 
the general compact. , . . The Constitution was not, therefore, 
necessarily carved out of existing state sovereignties, nor a sur- 
render of powers already existing in state institutions, for the 
powers of the states depend on their own constitutions ; and 

235 



236 National versus Sectional Interests 

the people of every state had the right to modify and restrain 
them, according to their own views of policy and principle. . . . 

The government, then of the United States, can claim no 
powers which are not granted to it by the Constitution. . . . 
On the other hand, this instrument, like every other grant, is 
to have a reasonable construction, according to the import of 
its terms. . . . The Constitution unavoidably deals in general 
language. It did not suit the purposes of the people, in framing 
this great charter of our liberties, to provide for minute specifi- 
cations of its powers. . . . [It] was not intended to provide 
merely for the exigencies of a few years, but was to endure 
through a long lapse of ages. ... It could not be foreseen 
what new changes and modifications of power might be indis- 
pensable to effectuate the general objects of the charter. . . . 
Hence its powers are expressed in general terms. . . . 

It is a mistake that the Constitution was not designed to 
operate upon states in their corporate capacities. It is crowded 
with provisions which restrain or annul the sovereignty of the 
states in some of the highest branches of their prerogatives. 
The tenth section of the first article contains a long list of dis- 
abilities and prohibitions imposed on the states. . . . When 
therefore, the states are stripped of some of the highest attri- 
butes of sovereignty, and the same are given to the United 
States; when the legislatures of the states are, in some re- 
spects, under the control of Congress ... it is certainly dif- 
ficult to support the argument that the appellate power over 
the decisions of state courts is contrary to the genius of our 
institutions. . . . 

We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the govern- 
ment are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. 
But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must 
allow to the national legislature that discretion with respect to 
the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried 
into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high 
duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the peo- 
ple. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of 
the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate . . . are 
constitutional. 



The Gi'oivtJi of a N^ational Conscionsiiess 237 

If we apply the principle for which the State of Maryland 
contends, to the Constitution generally, we shall find it capable 
of changing totally the character of that instrument. We shall 
find it capable of arresting all the measures of the government, 
and of prostrating it at the foot of the States. The American 
people have declared their Constitution, and the laws made in 
pursuance thereof, to be supreme ; but this principle would 
transfer the supremacy, in fact, to the States. If the States 
may tax one instrument employed by the government in the 
execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other in- 
strument. They may tax the mail ; they may tax the mint ; 
they may tax patent rights ; they may tax the papers of the 
custom-house. . . . This was not intended by the American 
people. They did not design to make their government de- 
pendent on the States. . . . 

The Court has bestowed on this subject its most deliberate 
consideration. The result is a conviction that the States have 
no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, 
or in any manner control the operations of the constitutional 
laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers 
vested in the general government. . . . We are unanimously of 
the opinion, that the law passed by the legislature of Maryland, 
imposing a tax on the Bank of the United States, is unconsti- 
tutional and void. . . . 

The acts of New York must yield to the laws of Congress ; 
and the decision sustaining the privilege they confer, against a 
right given by a law of the Union, must be erroneous. 

This opinion has been frequently expressed in this Court, 
and is founded as well on the nature of the government as on 
the words of the Constitution. . . . The nullity of any act in- 
consistent with the Constitution, is produced by the declaration, 
that the Constitution is the supreme law ; . . . and the law of 
the State, though enacted in the exercise of powers not contro- 
verted, must yield to it. 

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to his friend Thomas 
Ritchie, protests against what he considers a dangerous 
usurpation of power by the Supreme Court : 



238 National versus Sectional Interests 

Monticello, Dec. 25, 1820 

. . . The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps 
of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to 
undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They 
are construing our constitution from a coordination of a gen- 
eral and special government to a general and supreme one 
alone. This will lay all things at their feet, and they are too well 
versed in the English law to forget the maxim botii jicdicis est 
ampliare jicrisdidioiiem} . . . Having found, from experience, 
that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scare-crow, 
they consider themselves secure for life ; ^ they skulk from re- 
sponsibility to public opinion. ... An opinion is huddled up in 
conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unani- 
mous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid asso- 
ciates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his 
mind, by the turn of his own reasoning. A judiciary law was 
once reported by the Attorney-General to Congress, requiring 
each judge to deliver his opinion seriatim [in order] and openly, 
and then to give it in writing to the clerk to be entered in the 
record. A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is 
a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a 
solecism, at least in a republican government. . . . 

I hope our political bark will ride through all its dangers; 
but I can in future be but an inert passenger. 

I salute you with sentiments of great friendship and respect. 

Tho^ Jefferson 

1 " It is the business of a good judge to extend his jurisdiction." 

2 Jefferson is here alluding to the case of wSupreme Court Justice 
Samuel Chase of Maryland, one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, and a very ardent Federalist, who was impeached by 
the Republican House in 1804-1805 for his unblushing partisanship on 
the bench. He was acquitted. In a letter to James Pleasants, Decem- 
ber 26, 182 1, Jefferson suggests that the Supreme Court judges be ap- 
pointed only for a six-year term, ''with a re-appointmenability by the 
President with the approbation of both houses," impeachment being 
"a bugbear which they fear not at all." — Jefferson, Writings, ed. 
P. L. Ford, Vol. X, pp. 198-199. 



The Growth of a National Consciousness 239 

The Monroe Doctrine 

General Jackson's zealous prosecution of the ckmpa^i 

against the hostile combination of Indians, escaped Jieg 

Spaniards, and half-breeds in Florida, at the clos 

War of 18 1 2, brought a spirited protest from the 

minister at Washington, Don Luis de Onis, a 

mitted our State Department to the firm and 

policy which forced Spain to surrender Florida t 

the treaty of 18 19. A proclamation of Major 

berg's to the Indians and extracts from de Onis' 

and John Quincy Adams' ultimatum to our 

Erving at Madrid follow. 

Spanish Bluff, Nov. 28, 18 17 
Chiefs and Warriors : 

The President of the United States has been informed of the 
murders and thefts committed by the hostile Indians in this part 
of the country. He has authorized General Jackson to arrest 
the offenders, and cause justice to be done. The Indians have 
been required to deliver up the murderers of our citizens, and 
the stolen property, but they refused to deliver either; they 
have had a council at Mickasukee in which they have deter- 
mined on war ; they have been at war on helpless women and 
children, let them now calculate upon fighting men. Wc have 
long known that we had enemies east of this river ; we likewise 
know we have some friends ; but they are so mixed together 
we cannot always distinguish the one from the other. The 
President, wishing to do justice to his red friends and children, 
has given orders for the bad to be separated from the good. 
Those who have taken up arms against him, and such as have 
listened to the bad talks of the people beyond the sea [English 
agents], must go to Mickasukee Suwany, where we wish to 
find them together. But all those who were our friends in the 
war will sit at their homes in peace ; we will pay them for what 
corn and meat they have to sell us ; we will be their friends, 
and when they are hungry we will give them meat. The hostile 




240 National versus Sectional Interests 

party pretend to calculate on help from the British ! They may 
as well look for soldiers from the moon to help them. Their 
warriors were beaten and driven from our country by American 
troops. The English are not able to help themselves ; how 
then should they help the old '' Red Sticks," whom they have 
ruined by pretended friendship ? 

Washington, Dec. 12, 1818 
Sir: 

. . . With respect to the conduct of General Jackson in the in- 
vasion of Florida, and the excesses committed there in violation 
of the sovereignty and dignity of a friendly Power, as they are 
public and notorious, and sufficiently reprobated by public opin- 
ion ... I abstain from answering the arguments by which you 
have endeavored to justify that officer in the note I have the 
honor to reply to. Whatever may be the causes which, in the 
view of your Government, justified the war against the Semi- 
noles, you cannot fail to admit how improbable it is that those 
miserable Indians, feeble and wholly destitute as they are, could 
have provoked it. In the letter of the chief Boleck to the Gov- 
ernor of St. Augustine, of the 20^'' December, 18 16, a copy of 
which I had the honor to transmit to you on the 27''' March 
last, you must have remarked that he speaks of assassinations, 
carrying off of men and cattle, usurpations of his territory, and 
even forging of treaties for the cession of lands, signed or 
marked by the names of persons unknown to the chiefs of the 
Creek nation, who, he adds, are alone authorized to transfer 
the general property ; of all of which he accuses the Americans. 
Besides, the friendship and good understanding existing between 
the two nations . . , decisively required that any complaints 
which there might be against the Indians should be laid before 
His Majesty's Government [Spain], or before his Minister near 
this Republic, previous to the adoption of violent measures ; as 
it was scarcely possible that those excesses could be restrained 
by His Majesty so long as he remained ignorant of them, . . . 

The unquestionable fact is, that General Jackson, at the head 
of his army, fell upon Florida as a haughty invader and con- 
queror, regardless of the laws of humanity and the feelings of 
nature, and put to death two foreigners, who there enjoyed the 



TJie Groivtk of a National Consciousness 241 

protection of Spain, and an asylum which has ever been held 
sacred by all civilized nations ; thereby offering an unexampled 
insult to the sovereignty and independence of Spain ; trampling 
under foot the most solemn compacts, founded on the laws of 
nations; and contemptuously driving from that province the 
Spanish commandants and troops in garrison there. . . . 

Luis de Onis 

A fortnight before de Onis presented the above note 
to our State Department, Secretary Adams had dispatched 
to our minister at Madrid, George W. Erving, his famous 
letter of instructions which was tantamount to an ultima- 
tum to Spain/ After '' reminding the government of his 
Catholic Majesty of the incidents in which this Seminole 
war originated," and ''giving the Spanish cabinet some 
precise information of the nature of the business " in 
which Spain's '' allies " were engaged when they were in- 
terrupted by General Jackson, Mr. Adams continues : 

After the repeated expostulations, warnings, and offers of 
peace, through the summer and autumn of 181 7, on the part 
of the United States, had been answered only by renewed out- 
rages, and after a detachment of forty men under Lieutenant 
Scott, accompanied by seven women, had been waylaid and 
murdered by the Indians, orders were given to General Jackson, 

i It is interesting to compare with the high tone assumed towards 
Spain the real feeling of the President and of Secretary Adams in the 
Florida affair. Adams records in his " Memoirs," under the date of No- 
vember 23, 1818 : " The President returned me the draft of a letter to Onis, 
with some alterations which he suggested as necessary. He thought, 
among other things, that I had gone too far in the justification of 
Jackson's proceedings in Florida. He says he is decidedly of opinion 
that these proceedings have been attended with good results, and that 
they were in the main justifiable. But they were certainly not contem- 
plated in any of the instructions given to Jackson. He also thinks that 
the ultimate and deliberate opinion of the public will not entirely justify 
Jackson, in which opinion I entirely concur." — Memoirs of John 
Quincy Adams, Vol. IV, p. 176. 



242 National versus Sectional hiterests 

and an adequate force was placed at his disposal to terminate 
the war. It was ascertained that the Spanish force in Florida 
was inadequate for the protection even of the Spanish territory 
itself against this mingled horde of lawless Indians and negroes; 
and although their devastations were committed within the limits 
of the United States, they immediately sought refuge within the 
Florida line, and there only were to be overtaken. . . . There it 
was that the American commander met the principal resistance 
from them; there it was that were found the still bleeding scalps 
of our citizens, freshly butchered by them. . . . But it was not 
anticipated by this Government that the commanding officers of 
Spain in Florida, whose especial duty it was, in conformity to 
the solemn engagements contracted by their nation, to restrain 
by force those Indians from hostilities against the United States 
[by the treaty of 1795], would be found encouraging, aiding, and 
abetting them, and furnishing them supplies for carrying on 
such hostilities. The officer in command immediately before 
General Jackson was, therefore, specially instructed to respect, 
as far as possible, the Spanish authority, wherever it was main- 
tained; and copies of these orders were also furnished to 
General Jackson, upon his taking the command. 

In the course of his pursuit, as he approached St. Mark's, he 
was informed direct from the Governor of Pensacola that a party 
of the hostile Indians had threatened to seize that fort, and that 
he apprehended the Spanish garrison there was not in strength 
sufficient to defend it against them. This information . . . proved 
to have been exactly true. By all the laws of neutrality and of 
war, as well as of prudence and of humanity, he was warranted 
in anticipating his enemy by the amicable, and, that being re- 
fused, by the forcible occupation of the fort. There will need 
no citations from printed treatises on international law to prove 
the correctness of this principle. It is engraved in adamant on 
the common sense of mankind. . . . 

On the approach of General Jackson to Pensacola, the gov- 
ernor sent him a letter denouncing his entry upon the territory 
of Florida as a violent outrage on the rights of Spain, command- 
ing him to depart and withdraw from the same, and threatening, 
in case of his non-compliance, to employ force to expel him. 



The Growth of a National Co7iscio7isness 243 

It became, therefore, in the opinion of General Jackson, indis- 
pensably necessary to take from the Governor of Pensacola the 
means of carrying his threat into execution. . . . He took pos- 
session therefore of Pensacola and of the fort of Barrancas, as 
he had done of St. Mark, not in a spirit of hostility to Spain, 
but as a necessary measure of self-defence ; giving notice that 
they should be restored whenever Spain should place command- 
ers and a force there able and willing to fulfil the engagements 
of Spain towards the United States, or of restraining by force 
the Florida Indians from hostilities against their citizens. . . . 
The obligation of Spain to restrain, by force, the Indians of 
Florida from hostilities against the United States and their citi- 
zens, is explicit, is positive, is unqualified. The fact that for a 
series of years they have received shelter, assistance, supplies, 
and protection in the practice of such hostilities, from the Spanish 
commanders in Florida is clear and unequivocal. If, as the com- 
manders both at Pensacola and St. Mark's have alleged, this 
has been the result of their weakness rather than of their will ; 
if they have assisted the Indians against the United States to 
avert their hostilities from the province which they had not suffi- 
cient force to defend against them, it may serve in some meas- 
ure to exculpate, individually, those officers ; but it must carry 
demonstration irresistible to the Spanish Government, that the 
right of the United States can as little compound with impo- 
tence as with perfidy, and that Spain must immediately make 
her election, either to place a force in Florida adequate at once 
to the protection of her territory, and to the fulfilment of her 
engagements, or cede to the United States a province, of which 
she retains nothing but the nominal possession, but which is, in 
fact, a derelict open to the occupancy of every enemy, civilized 
or savage, of the United States. . . . 

You are authorized to communicate the whole of this letter, 

and the accompanying documents, to the Spanish Government. 

I have the honor, etc., etc. 

John Quincy Adams 

The famous paragraphs in President Monroe's seventh 
annual message to Congress, December 2, 1823, which 



244 Natio7ial vej'siis Sectional Interests 

61. The announced the policy of the United States in regard to the 
Doctrine interference of the European powers in the affairs of this 
December 2, continent, either for the acquisition of new colonies or for 
the disturbance of existing governments, have gained an 



[242] 



added interest in the last few decades, by reason both of 
our entrance into the ranks of the great naval powers which 
have conquered and colonized distant lands, and of our 
increasing concern in the fortunes of the republics of Cen- 
tral and South America. Although the Monroe Doctrine 
is the only official pronouncement in our history that bears 
the name of a president, it was not Monroe's, nor any 
other man's, doctrine. It was simply a clear statement, 
at a critical moment, of our policy, asserted repeatedly 
from the days of Washington down, to keep America as 
remote as possible from the complicated quarrels of the 
courts of Europe. 

A precise knowledge of our relations with foreign powers as 
respects our negotiations and transactions with each is thought 
to be particularly necessary. Equally necessary is it that we 
should form a just estimate of our resources, revenue, and prog- 
ress in every kind of improvement connected with the national 
prosperity and public defense. It is by rendering justice to other 
nations that we may expect it from them. It is by our ability to 
resent injuries and redress wrongs that we may avoid them. . . . 

At the proposal of the Russian Imperial Government, made 
through the minister of the Emperor residing here, a full power 
and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the 
United States at St. Petersburg, to arrange by amicable negotia- 
tion the respective rights and interests of the two nations on 
the north-west coast of this continent. ... In the discussions 
to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by 
which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper 
for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of 
the United States are involved, that the American continents, 



TJie Grozvth of a National Conscio2is7iess 245 

by the free and independent condition which they have assumed 
and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects 
for future colonization by any European powers. . . . 

It was stated at the commencement of the last session that 
a great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to im- 
prove the condition of the people of those countries, and that 
it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It 
need scarcely be remarked that the result has been so far very 
different from what was then anticipated.^ Of events in that 
quarter of the globe, w4th which we have so much intercourse 
and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anx- 
ious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United States 
cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and 
happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In 
the wars of the European powers in matters relating to them- 
selves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with 
our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or 
seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparations 
for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are 
of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which 
must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The 
political system of the allied powers ^ is essentially different in 
this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from 
that which exists in their respective governments : and to the 

• 1 In the midsummer of 1822 the revolutionists of Spain had gotten the 
upper hand and compelled the absolute Bourbon king, Ferdinand VII, 
to acknowledge a constitutional regime. Then French forces under the 
Duke of Angouleme invaded Spain (April, 1823) and restored the ab- 
solute king in a violent civil war. Riego, the leader of the revolutionists, 
was hung from a gallows forty feet high, just a few days before Monroe 
sent his message (November 7, 1823). 

■2 The Holy Alliance was concluded between the sovereigns of Aus- 
tria, Prussia, and Russia in 181 5 for the alleged purpose of ruling the 
peoples whom they were " delegated by Providence to govern " accord- 
ing to the " principles which the Divine Savior has taught to mankind." 
Three years later, however, these sovereigns embarked on the policy of 
armed intervention in the other states of Europe for the sake of quell- 
ing rebellions and supporting " legitimate " thrones. The fear that they 
would extend their operations to restore the authority of Spain in the 
American republics called forth the Monroe Doctrine. 



246 National versus Sectional Interests 

defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so 
much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their 
most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed un- 
exampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it there- 
fore to candor and to the amicable relations existing between 
the United States and those powers, to declare that we should 
consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any 
portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. 
With the existing colonies or dependencies of any power we 
have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Gov- 
ernments who have declared their independence and maintained 
it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and 
on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any inter- 
position for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in 
any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any 
other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition 
towards the United States. . . . 

Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an 
early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter 
of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to 
interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers ; to con- 
sider the government de facto as the legitimate government for 
us ; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those 
relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all in- 
stances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries 
from none. . . . 



CHAPTER IX 

SECTIONAL INTERESTS 

Facing Westward 

In the two decades following our second war with 62. British 
England, when the land between the Alleghenies and the A^merka° 
Mississippi was rapidly filling up, America was most con- 1820-1837 
spicuously a pioneer community. Social amenities, polished ^^^^^ 
manners, literary and artistic ambitions were all in abeyance 
before the stern necessity of coping with the actual physical 
task of building a home, a city, an empire of the West. Our 
many British visitors. and critics in this period judged our 
pioneer community harshly — the more harshly, perhaps, 
as it supplemented a rather breezy confidence in Yankee 
push and shrewdness with the boastful, persistent reminder 
that America had twice brought Great Britain to treat for 
peace. In a review of Adam Seybert's " Statistical An- 
nals of the United States," published at Philadelphia in 
18 1 8, Sydney Smith writes in the Edinbici^gh Review for 
January, 1820: 

Jonathan must not grow vain and ambitious ; or allow himself 
to be dazzled by that galaxy of epithets by which his orators and 
newspaper scribblers endeavor to persuade their supporters that 
they are the greatest, the most refined, the most enlightened, 
and the most moral people upon earth. The effect of this is 
unspeakably ludicrous on this side of the Atlantic — and even 
on the other, we should imagine, must be rather humiliating to 
the reasonable part of the population. The Americans are a 
brave, industrious,, and acute people ; but they have hitherto 

247 



248 National versus Sectional Interests 

given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the 
heroic, either in their morality or character. They are but a 
recent offset, indeed, from England ; and should make it their 
chief boast, for many generations to come, that they are sprung 
from the same race with Bacon and Shakespeare and Newton. 
Considering their numbers, indeed, and the favorable circum- 
stances in which they have been placed, they have yet done 
marvellously little to assert the honor of such a descent, or to 
show that their English blood has been exalted or refined by 
their republican training and institutions. Their Franklins and 
Washingtons, and all the other sages and heroes of their revo- 
lution, were born and bred subjects of the King of England, — 
and not among the freest or most valued of his subjects. And, 
since the period of their separation, a far greater proportion 
of their statesmen and artists and political writers have been 
foreigners, than ever occurred before in the history of any civi- 
lized and educated people. During the thirty or forty years of 
their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the 
Sciences, for the Arts, for Literature, or even for the statesman- 
like studies of Politics or Political Economy. . . . 

In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American 
book ? or goes to an American play ? or looks at an American pic- 
ture or statue 1 What does the world yet owe to American 
physicians or surgeons ? What new substances have their chem- 
ists discovered, or what old ones have they analyzed ? What 
new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of 
Americans ? — What have they done in the mathematics ? Who 
drinks out of American glasses ? or eats from American plates ? 
or wears American coats or gowns ? or sleeps in American blan- 
kets .? — Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments 
of Europe is every sixth man a Slave, whom his fellow-creatures 
may buy and sell and torture ? 

When these questions are fairly and favorably answered, their 
laudatoiy epithets may be allowed : But, till that can be done, 
we would seriously advise them to keep clear of superlatives. 

One of our most unsparing critics was Mrs. Y . M. Trol- 
lope, an English novelist and mother of the more famous 



Sectional Interests 249 

Anthony Trollope, who hved three years (i 828-1 831) in 
the new town of Cincinnati, '' the western Umit of our civi- 
hzation." Mrs. Trollope found the people among whom 
she lived harsh, uncouth, unfeeling, conceited, boastful, 
tricky, and sanctimonious.^ Her stay in America con- 
firmed her in the aristocratic faith that ' ' the advantages 
of life are on the side of those who are governed by the 
few," and that " degradation invariably follows the wild 
scheme of placing all the power of the State in the hands 
of the populace." 

My general appellation amongst my neighbors was " the 
English old woman," but in mentioning each other they con- 
stantly employed the term " lady " ; and they evidently had a 
pleasure in using it, for I repeatedly observed, that in speaking 
of a neighbor, instead of saying Mrs. Such-a-one, they described 
her as ^' the lady over the way what takes in washing," or as 
" that there lady, out by the gully, what is making dip-candles." 
. . . Our respective titles certainly were not very important; but 
the eternal shaking hands with these ladies and gentlemen was 
really an annoyance, and the more so, as the near approach of 
the gentlemen was always redolent of whiskey and tobacco. 

But the point where this republican equality was the most 
distressing was in the long and frequent visitations that it pro- 
duced. No one dreams of fastening a door in Western America; 
I was told that it would be considered as an affront by the whole 
neighborhood, I was thus exposed to perpetual, and most vex- 
atious interruptions from people whom I had often never seen, 
and whose names still oftener were unknown to me. ... If it 
was a female, she took off her hat ; if a male, he kept it on, and 
then taking possession of the first chair in their way, they would 
retain it for an hour together, without uttering another word ; at 

1 Charles Dickens, in " Martin Chuzzlewit," paints a very unflattering 
picture of western American society (1S44). " One might almost fancy," 
says H. T. Peck in his introduction to Mrs. Trollope's memoirs, "that 
Mrs. Trollope's descriptions are the material from which the more highly 
colored pictures of Dickens were elaborated." 



250 National versus Sectional Interests 

length, rising abruptly, they would again shake hands, with, 
'' Well, now I must be going, I guess," and so take themselves 
off, apparently well contented with their reception. . . . 

There was one man whose progress in wealth I watched with 
much interest and pleasure. When I first became his neighbor, 
himself, his wife, and four children were living in one room, with 
plenty of beef-steaks and onions for breakfast, dinner, and supper, 
but with very few other comforts. He was one of the finest 
men I ever saw, full of natural intelligence and activity of mind 
and body, but he could neither read nor write. ... I have no 
doubt that every sun that sets sees him a richer man than when 
it rose. He hopes to make his son a lawyer ; and I have little 
doubt that he will live to see him sit in Congress. When this time 
arrives, the wood-cutter's son will rank with any other member 
of Congress, not of courtesy, but of right. . . . 

This is the only feature in American society that I recognize 
as indicative of the equality they profess. Any man's son may 
become the equal of any other man's son ; and the consciousness 
of this is certainly a spur to exertion : on the other hand it is 
also a spur to that coarse familiarity, untempered by any shadow 
of respect, which is assumed by the grossest and the lowest in 
their intercourse with the highest and most refined. This is a 
positive evil, and, I think, more than balances its advantages. . . . 

In reading Capt. Hall's volumes on America,^ the observation 
which, I think, struck me the most forcibly . . . was the follow- 
ing: " In all my travels both amongst Heathens, and amongst 
Christians, I never encountered any people by whom I found 
it nearly so difficult to make myself understood as by the Ameri- 
cans." ... It is less necessary, I imagine, for the mutual under- 
standing of persons conversing together, that the language should 
be the same, than that their ordinary mode of thinking, and 
habits of life, should, in some degree, assimilate ; whereas, in 
point of fact, there is hardly a single point of sympathy between 
the Americans and us. . . . Herein, I think rests the only apology 
for the preposterous and undignified anger felt and expressed 
against Capt. Hall's work. They really cannot, even if they 

1 Captain Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 
1828, 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1827, 



Sectional Interests 251 

wished it, enter into any of his views or comprehend his most 
ordinary feelings ; and therefore they cannot believe in the 
sincerity of the impressions he describes. 

A more sympathetic, if not much more favorable, view 
of Americans is presented by the indefatigable traveler and 
novelist, Captain Marryat, who visited us in 1837 : 

The Americans are often themselves the cause of their being 
misrepresented ; there is no country perhaps in which the habit 
of deceiving for amusement, or what is termed hoaxing, is so 
common. Indeed this and hyperbole constitute the major part 
of American humor. If they have the slightest suspicion that a 
foreigner is about to write a book, nothing appears to give them 
so much pleasure as to try to mislead him. . . . When I was 
at Boston, a gentleman of my acquaintance brought me Miss 
Martineau's work,^ and was excessively delighted when he 
pointed out to me two pages of fallacies, which he had told her 
with a grave face and which she had duly recorded and printed. . . . 

Another difficulty and cause of misrepresentation is, that 
travellers are not aware of the jealousy existing between the 
inhabitants of the different states and cities. The eastern states 
pronounce the southerners to be choleric, reckless, regardless of 
law and indifferent to religion ; while the southerners designate 
the eastern states as a nursery of overreaching pedlars, selling 
clocks and wooden nutmegs. . . . Boston turns up her erudite 
nose at New York ; Philadelphia in her pride looks down on 
both New York and Boston ; while New York, chinking her 

1 Harriet Martineau, Society in America, 3 vols. London, 1837. 
Capt. Marryat cut from a New York newspaper in 1837 this notice: 
" That old deaf English maiden lady, Miss Martineau, who travelled 
through some of the States a few years since, gives a full account of 
Mr. Poindexter's death ; unfortunately for her veracity, the gentleman 
still lives ; but this is about as near the truth as the majority of her state- 
ments. The Loafi7ig English men and women who visit America, as 
penny-a-liners, are perfectly understood here, and Jonathan amuses him- 
self whenever he meets them, by imposing upon their credulity the most 
absurd stories which he can invent, which they swallow whole, go home 
with their eyes sticking out of their heads with wonder, and print all they 
have heard for the benefit of John Bull's calves." 



252 National versus Sectional Interests 

dollars, swears the Bostonians are a parcel of puritanical prigs, 
and the Philadelphians a would-be aristocracy. A western man 
from Kentucky, when at the Tremont House in Boston, begged 
me particularly not to pay attention to what they said of his state 
in that quarter. Both a Virginian and Tennesseean, when I was 
at New York did the same. . . . 

America is a wonderful country, endowed by the Omnipotent 
with natural advantages which no other can boast of ; and the 
mind can hardly calculate upon the degree of perfection and 
power to which, whether the States are eventually separated or 
not, it may in the course of two centuries arrive. At present all 
is energy and enterprise. ... If I were to draw a comparison be- 
tween the English and the Americans, I should say that there is 
almost as much difference between the two nations at this present 
time, as there has long been between the English and the Dutch. 
The latter are considered by us as phlegmatic and slow ; and we 
may be considered the same compared with our energetic descend- 
ants. Time to an American is everything, and space he attempts 
to reduce to a mere nothing. ... "Go ahead ! " is the real motto 
of the country. . . . The American lives twice as long as others ; 
for he does twice the work during the time that he lives. . . . He 
rises early, eats his meals with the rapidity of a wolf, and is the 
whole day at his business. If he be a merchant, his money, what- 
ever it amount to is seldom invested ; it is all floating — his ac- 
cumulations remain active ; and when he dies, his wealth has to 
be collected from the four quarters of the globe. . . . Each man 
would surpass his neighbour ; and the only great avenue open 
to all, and into which thousands may press without much jostling 
of each other, is that which leads to the shrine of Mammon. 

63. The river There is no more accurate gauge of the prosperity of 
Odeans ^^ ^^^ Middle West in the period under consideration than the 
1816-1840 statistics of commerce on the great Mississippi River system. 
[247] During the first half of the nineteenth century, when trans- 
portation in America was based on the waterways, New 
Orleans became the queen city of commerce in the South, 
as New York did in the North. The report of 1887 on 



Sectional Interests 



253 



the internal commerce of the United States thus reviews 
the trade of New Orleans : 

The receipts of New Orleans during the first year of success- 
ful steam navigation, 18 16, amounted in value to $8,062,540. . . . 
This is independent of the produce raised in Louisiana, such as 
cotton, corn, indigo, molasses, rice, sugar, tafia or rum, and 
lumber. These were brought to the market in the planters' crafts, 
and often taken from the plantation direct in foreign-bound 
vessels. . . . The value of the receipts shows to what extent 
the produce of the West passed through New Orleans. Cotton, 
which in later days rose to be 60 or even 75 per cent, in value 
of all the receipts, was then barely 12 per cent. At least 80 per 
cent, of the articles came from the West, that is from the Ohio, 
and the Upper Mississippi, above the Ohio. They represented 
the surplus products of the Mississippi Valley, for but little found 
any other exit to market. Much of the product shipped from 
the West to New Orleans was lost en route. A rough estimate 
places the loss from disasters, snags, etc. at 20 per cent. Many 
boats, moreover, stopped along the river on their way down to 
sell supplies to the planters. Thus at Natchez flour, grain, and 
pork were purchased from the Kentucky boats. f>om these 
losses the sales and shipments down the river in 18 16, including 
the products of Louisiana, may be estimated at $13,875,000. 
The river traffic required 6 steam-boats, 594 barges, and 1287 
flat-boats, of an actual tonnage of 87,670. . . . 

During all this period [18 16-1840], and despite all these diffi- 
culties, the number of arrivals at New Orleans and the amount of 
river business on the Lower Mississippi continued to steadily in- 
crease. The growth of the river traffic is well shown in this table : 



Years 


Arrivals of Steamboats 


Tons of Freight 


Value of Produce 


1816-1817 . . 




80,820 


$8,773'379 


1820-1821 . . 


202 


99,320 


11,967,067 


1825-1826 . . 


608 


193,300 


20,446,320 


1830-1831 . . 


778 


307.300 


26,044,820 


1835-1836 . . 


1272 


437,100 


39,237,762 


1840-1841 . . 


1958 


542,500 


49,822,115 



2 54 National versus Sectiojial hiterests 

In regard to the steam-boats, it should be remembered that the 
steady increase in arrivals each year does not fully express 
the increase in tonnage, because the boats were not only growing 
more numerous, but were increasing in size each year, and thus 
while they doubled in number between 1825 and 1833, they 
more than trebled in their carrying capacity. . . . 

As the first two decades of the century showed the settlement 
of the Ohio basin, and a rapid increase in population and pro- 
duction, so the next two resulted in the settlement of the Lower 
Mississippi region from Louisiana to the mouth of the Ohio. 
The removal of the Indian tribes to the Indian Territory, the 
building of levees and the immense increase in the demand for 
cotton, hastened the development of West Tennessee, Mississippi, 
Arkansas, and Northern Louisiana. . . . 

It was during this period that the South first began to insist 
on the sovereignty of King Cotton, and New Orleans claimed, 
like Mahomet, to be its prophet. The rapid development of the 
cotton manufacturing industries in Europe incited the planters 
to devote more and more acres to it, and it became highly prof- 
itable to cultivate cotton even on credit. New Orleans was over- 
flowing with money in those flush times, and lent it readily. . . . 
When the big collapse of 1837 c^rne, the banks of New Orleans, 
with a circulation of $7,000,000 purported to have a capital of 
$34,000,000, a great majority of them being wrecked in the 
storm. Within a few years, however, New Orleans had recovered 
from the shock and strengthened its hold on the planters. . . . 

That eminent statistical and economical authority, De Bow's 
Review, declared that '' no city of the world has ever advanced 
as a mart of commerce with such gigantic and rapid strides as 
New Orleans." It was no idle boast. Between 1830 and 1840 
no city of the United States kept pace with it. When the census 
was taken it was fourth in population, exceeded only by New 
York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and fourth in point of com- 
merce of the ports of the world, exceeded only by London, 
Liverpool, and New York, being indeed but a short distance 
behind the latter city, and ahead of it in the export of domestic 
products. 



Sectional Interests 255 



The Favorite Sons 

The following extracts from the diary of John Quincy 64. jockey- 
Adams show h(J)w incessant were the combinations, in- p^fsidentiai 
trigues, and deals between the political factions to win ^^'^^y ^^24 
the presidential election of 1824. I^^^J 

Jan. 30*'' [1824]. Colonel R. M. Johnson, Mr. R. King, 
and Mr. Fuller had long conversations with me concerning the 
movements of the parties here for the Presidential succession. 
Johnson says that Calhoun proposed to him an arrangement by 
which I should be supported as President, General Jackson as 
Vice-President, Clay to be Secretary of State, and he himself 
Secretary of the Treasury ; not as a bargain or coalition, but 
by the common understanding of our mutual friends. I made 
no remark upon this, but it discloses the forlorn hope of Calhoun, 
which is to secure a step of advancement to himself, and the 
total exclusion of Crawford, even from his present office at the 
head of the Treasury. . . . 

Feb'y 4'^ I attended in the evening the drawing-room at 
the President's. On returning home I found J. W. Taylor at 
my house, and had a long conversation with him. He told me 
that Jesse B. Thomas, a Senator from Illinois, had strongly 
urged upon him the expediency of my acquiescing in the nomi- 
nation as Vice-President, with Mr. Crawford for the Presidency. 
He said that Mr. Crawford would certainly be elected . . . that 
from the state of Mr. Crawford's health it was highly probable 
the duties of the Presidency would devolve upon the Vice- 
President . . . that a compliance with the views of Mr. Craw- 
ford's friends on this occasion would be rendering them a 
service which would recommend me to their future favor, and 
would doubtless secure my election hereafter to the Presidency 

Feb'y 5'^. At the office, Mr. Bradley of Vermont called, 
and told me that he had information from an undoubted source 
that there was a coalition between Clay and Calhoun. How far 
the friends of Jackson had entered into it he did not know, but 
the project for the Harrisburg Convention on the 4*'' of March 



256 National versus Sectional Interests 

was to make up a ticket which would ultimately decide for 
Jackson, Clay, or Calhoun, according to circumstances, but 
excluding Crawford and me. . . . 

March 19*'^ Johnson says Mr. Crawford's friends, particularly 
Governor Barbour, are very sanguine of his election, and entirely 
sure of the vote of New York. They consider all prospect of my 
being supported as having vanished, and that all New England 
will abandon me and vote for Crawford. I believe Mr. Crawford's 
prospects and mine equally unpromising. . . . Whether all New 
England will support me is yet problematical, and the rest is yet 
more uncertain. The issue must be where it ought to be, and 
my duty is cheerful acquiescence in the event. . . . 

March 23''. The mining and countermining upon this Presi- 
dential election is an admirable study of human nature. The 
mist into which Calhoun's bubble broke settles upon Jackson, 
who is now taking the fragments of Clinton's party. Those of 
Clay will also fall chiefly to him and his sect, and Crawford's 
are now working for mine. They both consider my prospects 
as desperate, and are scrambling for my spoils. I can do no 
more than satisfy them that I have no purchasable interest. 
My friends will go over to whomsoever they may prefer. . . . 

April ly*''. At the office, Albert H. Tracy came, and had a 
conversation with me of nearly two hours, chiefly on the pros- 
pects of the Presidential election. He said there was a great 
and powerful party getting up for General Jackson as President 
in New York ; that it could not possibly succeed, but that its 
probable effect would be to secure the electoral vote of the 
State to Mr. Crawford. . . . 

May 15"". W. Plumer, a member from New Hampshire, 
was here this morning. ... I told him that there was no per- 
son who could be substituted for Jackson to fill the Vice- 
Presidency. . . . He would be satisfied [!], and so would 
substantially his friends, to be Vice-President. ... I said the 
Vice-Presidency was a station in which the General could hang 
no one, and in which he would need to quarrel with no one. 
His name and character would serve to restore the forgotten 
dignity of the place, and it would afford an easy and dignified 
retirement to his old age. . . . 



Sectional Interests 257 

When the choice of presidential electors in November 
failed to give a majority to any of the four principal candi- 
dates, the election of a president was thrown into the House 
of Representatives, and the electioneering was redoubled 
for capturing the votes of the states in the House. 

Jan'y 9"" [1825]. Mr. Clay came at six and spent the eve- 
ning with me. . . . He said that the dme was drawing near when 
the choice must be made in the House of Representatives of a 
President from the three candidates presented by the electoral 
colleges ; that he had been much urged and solicited with regard 
to the part in that transaction that he should take. . . . He 
wished me, as far as I might think proper, to satisfy him with 
regard to some principles of great public importance, but with- 
out any personal considerations for himself. In the question to 
come before the House between General Jackson, Mr. Crawford, 
and myself, he had no hesitation in saying that his preference 
would be for me. . . . 

Jan'y 29*^. . . . [Mr. Clay's] own situation is critical and 
difficult. He is attacked with fury in the newspapers for having 
come out for me, and threats of violence have been largely 
thrown out by the partisans of General Jackson, particularly 
those of the Calhoun interest. Richard M. Johnson told me at 
the drawing-room last Wednesday that it had been seriously 
proposed to him, in the event of the failure of Jackson's elec- 
tion, to erect his standard ; and I received this morning an 
anonymous letter from Philadelphia threatening organized op- 
position and civil war if Jackson is not chosen. This blustering 
has an air of desperation. But we must meet it. . . . 

Feb'y 9^^. May the blessing of God rest upon the event of 
this day ! — the second Wednesday in February, when the elec- 
tion of a President of the United States for the term of four 
years, from the 4''' of March next, was consummated. . . . The 
House of Representatives immediately proceeded to the vote 
by ballot from the three highest candidates, when John Quincy 
Adams received the votes of thirteen, Andrew Jackson of seven, 
and William H. Crawford of four states. The election was thus 



258 National versus Sectional Interests 

completed, very unexpectedly, by a single ballot. . . . After 
dinner, the Russian Minister, Baron Tuyl, called to congratulate 
me on the issue of the election. I attended, with Mrs. Adams, 
the drawing-room at the President's. It was crowded to over- 
flowing. General Jackson was there, and we shook hands. He 
was altogether placid and courteous. I received numerous 
friendly salutations. ... I enclosed Mr. R. King's note, with 
a letter of three lines to my father, asking for his blessing and 
prayers on the event of this day, the most important day of my 
life, and which I would close as it began, with supplications to 
the Father of all mercies that its consequences may redound to 
His glory and to the welfare of my country. After I returned 
from the drawing-room, a band of musicians came and serenaded 
me at my house. It was past midnight when I retired. . . . 

The elder Adams replied to his son's communication 
in the following touching letter : 

Quincy, Mass., 18''' February, 1825 

I have received your letter of the cf^. Never did I feel 

so much solemnity as on this occasion.- The multitude of my 

thoughts and the intensity of my feelings are too much for a 

mind like mine, in its ninetieth year. May the blessing of God 

Almighty continue to protect you to the end of your life, as it 

has heretofore protected you in so remarkable a manner from 

your cradle ! I offer the same prayer for your lady and your 

family — and am 

Your affectionate father, 

John Adams 
An Era of FIard Feeling 

65. Benton's The most persistent advocate of westward expansion 

occupation^of ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ nineteenth century was Senator 

Oregon, 1825 Thomas H. Benton of Missouri. In aggressive, almost 

[262] truculent, language he maintained that neither Spain had 

any fair claim to Texas nor Great Britain to Oregon. In 

1825, when the period of joint occupation provided by the 



ik-- 



Sectional hiterests 259 

treaty of 18 18 was drawing to a close, Benton brought a 
bill into the Senate, empowering the President to take 
possession of the Columbia valley and hold it as exclusive 
American territory. In defense of the bill (which received 
only fourteen votes) Benton said : 

It is now, Mr. President, precisely two and twenty years since 
a contest for the Columbia has been going on between the 
United States and Great Britain. The contest originated with 
the discovery of the river itself. The moment that we discov- 
ered it she claimed it ; and without a color of title in her hand, 
she has labored ever since to overreach us in the arts of negotia- 
tion, or to bully us out of our discovery by menaces of war. 

In the year 1790 [1792] a citizen of the United States, Capt. 
Gray of Boston, discovered the Columbia at its entrance into 
the sea; and in 1803 Lewis and Clark were sent by the govern- 
ment of the United States to complete the discovery of the 
whole river from its source downward, and to take formal pos- 
session in the name of their government.^ In 1793 Sir Alex- 
ander McKenzie had been sent from Canada by the British 
Government to effect the same object ; but he missed the sources 
of the river, . . . and struck the Pacific about five hundred miles 
to the north of the mouth of the Columbia. . . . 

The truth is, Mr. President, Great Britain has no color of 
title to the country in question. She sets up none. There is not 
a paper on the face of the earth in which a British minister 
has stated a claim. I speak of the King's ministers and not of 
the agents employed by them. The claims we have been ex- 
amining are thrown out in the conversations and notes of diplo- 
matic agents. No English minister has ever put his name to 
them, and no one will ever risk his character as a statesman by 
venturing to do so. The claim of Great Britain is nothing but 
a naked pretension founded on the double prospect of bene- 
fiting herself and injuring the United States. The fur trader, 

1 In Jefferson's instructions to Lewis, June 20, 1803, there is nothing 
about taking formal possession in the name of our government. See 
No. 55, p. 218. 



26o National versus Sectional Interests 

Sir Alexander McKenzie, is at the bottom of this policy. Failing 
in his attempt to explore the Columbia River in 1793, he, never- 
theless, urged upon the British Government the advantages of 
taking it to herself, and of expelling the Americans from the 
whole region west of the Rocky Mountains. The advice ac- 
corded too well with the passions and policy of that government 
to be disregarded. It is a government which has lost no oppor- 
tunity, since the peace of "^'^^ of aggrandizing itself at the ex- 
pense of the United States. It is a government which listens 
to the suggestions of its experienced subjects, and thus an in- 
dividual, in the humble station of a fur trader, has pointed out 
the policy which has been pursued by every Minister of Great 
Britain from Pitt to Canning, and for the maintenance of which 
a war is now menaced. . . . 

I do not argue the question of title on the part of the United 
States, but only state it as founded upon — i. Discovery of the 
Columbia River by Capt. Gray in 1790 [1792]; 2. Purchase 
of Louisiana in 1803; 3. Discovery of the Columbia from its 
head to its mouth by Lewis and Clark in 1803 [1805] ; 4. Settle- 
ment of Astoria in 181 1 ; 5. Treaty with Spain in 1819 ; 6. Con- 
tiguity and continuity of settlement and possession. Nor do I 
argue the question of the advantages of retaining the Columbia, 
and refusing to divide or alienate our territory upon it. I merely 
state them and leave their value to result from their enumera- 
tion. I. To keep out a foreign power; 2. To gain a seaport 
with a military and naval station on the coast of the Pacific ; 
3. To save the fur trade in that region, and prevent our Indians 
from being tampered with by British traders ; 4. To open a 
communication for commercial purposes between the Mississippi 
and the Pacific ; 5. To send the light of science and of religion 
into eastern Asia. 



The " Tariff of Abominations " 

The passage of the Tariff of Abominations of May, 
1828, brought from the legislature of South Carolina the 
following resolutions : 



Sectional hi teres ts 261 

Resolved : That it is expedient to protest against the uncon- 66. The pro- 
stitutionality and oppressive operation of the system of protect- Jf ®* |! South 
ing duties, and to have such protest entered on the Journals of against high 
the Senate of the United States — Also, to make a public ex- tariff, 1828 
position of our wrongs and of the remedies within our power, [273] 
to be communicated to our sister States, with a request that they 
will cooperate with this State in procuring a repeal of the Tariff 
for protection, and an abandonment of the principle ; and if the 
repeal be not procured, that they will cooperate in such measures 
as may be necessary for arresting the evil 

Resolved : That a committee of seven be raised to carry the 
foregoing jesolution into effect. 

The special committee reported the famous '* Exposi- 
tion and Protest " from the peh of John C. Calhoun, vice 
president of the United States. The following extracts are 
taken from that part of the Exposition dealing with the 
economic evil of the tariff for the South : ^ 

The committee have bestowed on the subjects referred to 
them the deliberate attention which their importance demands ; 
and the result, on full investigation, is a unanimous opinion that 
the act of Congress of the last session, with the whole system 
of legislation imposing duties on imports, — not for revenue, but 
the protection of one branch of industry at the expense of others 
— is unconstitutional, unequal, and oppressive, and calculated 
to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the 
country. . . . 

The committee do not propose to enter into an elaborate or 
refined argument on the question of the constitutionality of the 

^ This economic danger had already been realized by leaders in the 
South. President Thomas Cooper of the College of South Carolina had 
written five years earlier (even before the tariff of 1824) to the Con- 
gressmen from his state : " Let the Southern States look to it 1 They 
are not threatened with a system of unjust and burthensome taxation 
merely : this is a trifle in the plan. They are threatened with the anni- 
hilation of their staple commodity — not ivith taxation but destruction P'* 
~- Reverend Thomas Cooper, Two Tracts on the Proposed Alteration 
of the Tariff, p. 27. 



262 National versus Sectional hiterests 

Tariff system. The General Government is one of specific 
powers, and it can rightfully exercise only the powers expressly 
granted. ... It results, necessarily, that those who claim to ex- 
ercise power under the Constitution, are bound to show that 
it is expressly granted, or that it is necessary and proper as a 
means to some of the granted powers. The advocates of the 
Tariff have offered no such proof. It is true that the third sec- 
tion of the first article of the Constitution authorizes Congress 
to lay and collect an impost duty, but it is granted as a tax 
power for the sole purpose of revenue, — a power in its nature 
essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibi- 
tory duties. . . . The Constitution may be as grossly violated by 
acting against its meaning as against its letter. . . . The .facts 
are few and simple. The Constitution grants to Congress the 
power of imposing a duty on imports for revenue, which power 
is abused by being converted into an instrument of rearing up 
the industry of one section of the country on the ruins of an- 
other. ... It is, in a word, a violation by perversion, — the 
most dangerous of all because the most insidious and difficult 
to resist. . . . 

On entering this branch of the subject, the committee feel 
the painful character of the duty which they ' must perform. 
They would desire never to speak of our country, as far as the 
action of the General Government is concerned, but as one 
great whole, having a common interest, which all the parts 
ought zealously to promote. Previously to the adoption of the 
Tariff system, such was the unanimous feeling of this State ; 
but in speaking of its operation, it will be impossible to avoid 
the discussion of sectional interest, and the use of sectional lan- 
guage. On its authors, and not on us, who are compelled to 
adopt this course in self-defence, by injustice and oppression, 
be the censure. 

So partial are the effects of the system, that its burdens are 
exclusively on one side and its benefits on the other. It imposes 
on the agricultural interest of the South, including the South- 
west, and that portion of the country particularly engaged in 
commerce and navigation, the burden not only of sustaining the 
system itself, but that also of the Government. . . . That the 



Sectional Interests 263 

manufacturing States, even in their own opinion, bear no share 
of the burden of the Tariff in reality, we may infer with the 
greatest certainty from their conduct. The fact that they urgently 
demand an increase, and consider every addition as a blessing 
and a failure to obtain one as a curse, is the strongest confession 
that, whatever burden it imposes, in reality falls not on them, 
but on others. Men ask not for burdens, but benefits. . . . 

Let us now trace the operation of the system in some of its 
prominent details, in order to understand, with greater precision, 
the extent of the burden it imposes on us, and the benefits which 
it confers, at our expense, on the manufacturing states. . . . The 
exports of domestic produce, in round numbers, may be esti- 
mated as averaging $53,000,000 annually; of which the States 
growing cotton, rice, and tobacco produce about $37,000,000. 
In the last four years, the average amount of the export of 
cotton, rice, and tobacco, exceeded $35,500,000; to which, if we 
add flour, com, lumber, and other articles exported from the 
states producing the former, their exports cannot be estimated 
at a less sum than that stated. Taking it at that sum, the ex- 
ports of the Southern or staple States, and other States, will 
stand as $37,000,000 to $16,000,000 — or considerably more 
than the proportion of two to one; while their population, esti- 
mated in federal numbers, is the reverse ; the former sending 
to the House of Representatives but 76 members, and the latter 
137. It follows that about one third of the Union exports more 
than two thirds of the domestic products. . . . The Government 
is supported almost exclusively by a tax on this exchange, in 
the shape of an impost duty, and which amounts annually to 
about $23,000,000. Previous to the passage of the act of the 
last session, this tax averaged about 37^ per cent, on the value 
of exports. . . . The present duty [averages] at least 45 per cent., 
which on $37,000,000, the amount of our share of the exports, 
will give the sum of $16,650,000 as our share of the contribution 
to the general Treasury. . . . 

What becomes of so large an amount of the products of our 
labor placed, by the operation of the system, at the disposal of 
Congress ? One point is certain, — a very small share returns 
to us, out of whose labor it is extracted. It would require much 



264 National versus Sectional Interests 

investigation to state, with precision, the proportion of the public 
revenue disbursed annually in the Southern, and other States 
respectively ; but the committee feel a thorough conviction . . . 
that a sum of much less than two million dollars falls to our 
share of the disbursements; and that it would be a moderate 
estimate to place our contribution, above what we receive back, 
through all of the appropriations, at $15,000,000; constituting 
to that great amount, an annual, continued, and uncompensated 
draft on the industry of the Southern States, through the 
Custom-House alone. 



CHAPTER X 

"THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON" 

Nullification 

Two of the scores of foreigners who have visited our 67. Andrew- 
country and written of our society and institutions stand stitution^^**' 
out conspicuous for the accuracy, sympathy, and justice autocrat 
of their remarks. One of these men is the recent EngHsh I^^^l 
ambassador to the United States, James Bryce (now Lord 
Dechmont), author of '' The American Commonwealth " ; 
the other, a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, who 
visited us in 183 1, with a commission from the French 
government to study our prison system. De Tocqueville 
duly visited and reported upon the prisons (Sing Sing, 
Auburn, and others), but this part of his work was soon 
forgotten in the interest and enthusiasm aroused by his 
general treatise on '' Democracy in America." At the close 
of a long section entitled " What are the chances of dura- 
tion of the American Union, and what dangers threaten 
it .? " De Tocqueville writes of the President : 

Some persons in Europe have formed an opinion of the 
influence of General Jackson upon the affairs of his country 
which appears highly extravagant to those who have seen the 
subject nearer at hand. We have been told that General Jack- 
son has won battles ; that he is an energetic man, prone by 
nature and habit to the use of force, covetous of power and a 
despot by inclination. All this may be true, but the inferences 
which have been drawn from these truths are very erroneous. 

265 



266 National versus Sectional Interests 

It has been imagined that General Jackson is bent on establish- 
ing a dictatorship in America, introducing a military spirit, and 
giving a degree of influence to the central authority which cannot 
but be dangerous to provincial [state] liberties. But in America 
the time for similar undertakings, and the age for men of this 
kind, is not yet come : if General Jackson had thought of exer- 
cising his authority in this manner, he would infallibly have 
forfeited his political station, and compromised his life, — he 
has not been so imprudent as to attempt anything of the kind. 

Far from wishing to extend the Federal power, the President 
belongs to the party which is desirous of limiting that power to 
the clear and precise letter of the Constitution, and which never 
puts a construction upon that act [the Constitution] favorable to 
the [central] government of the Union ; far from standing forth 
as the champion of centralization, General Jackson is the agent 
of the State jealousies [!] ; and he was placed in this lofty 
station by the passions which are most opposed to the central 
government. It is by perpetually flattering those passions that 
he maintains his station and his popularity. General Jackson is 
the slave of the majority ; he yields to its wishes, its propensities, 
and its demands — say, rather, anticipates and forestalls them. 

Whenever the governments of the States come into collision 
with that of the Union, the President is generally the first to 
question his own rights, — he almost always outstrips the legis- 
lature ; and when the extent of the Federal power is controverted, 
he takes part, as it were, against himself, . . . Not, indeed, that 
he is naturally weak or hostile to the Union ; for when the 
majority decided against the claims of nullification, he put him- 
self at their head, asserted the doctrines which the nation held 
distinctly and energetically, and was the first to recommend force ; 
but General Jackson appears to me, if I may use the American 
expression, to be a Federalist by taste and a Republican by 
calculation. 

General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority ; 
but when he feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows 
all obstacles in the pursuit of the objects which the community 
approves, or of those which it does not regard with jealousy. 
Supported by a power which his predecessors never had, he 



" The Reign of Andrezv Jackson " 267 

tramples on his personal enemies, whenever they cross his path, 
with a facility without example; he takes upon himself the 
responsibility of rrieasures which no one before him would have 
ventured to attempt ; he even treats the national representatives 
with a disdain approaching to insult ; he puts his veto upon the 
laws of Congress, and frequently neglects even to reply to that 
powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes treats his master 
roughly. The power of General Jackson perpetually increases, 
but that of the President declines ; in his hands, the Federal 
government is strong, but it will pass enfeebled into the hands 
of his successor. 

As for the treatment of " disdain approaching to insult," 
the " national representatives " were not a whit less accom- 
plished in its use than was General Jackson. When they 
spread upon the records of the Senate a vote of censure 
of the President for the removal of the deposits from the 
National Bank in the summer of 1833, he replied in a 
vigorous protest, April 15, 1834. 

To THE Senate of the United States : 

It appears by the published Journal of the Senate that on 
the 26^'' of December last a resolution was offered by a mem- 
ber of the Senate [Clay],^ which after a protracted debate was 

1 Henry Clay in the original form of the resolutions called the Presi- 
dent's action " dangerous to the liberties of the people." In presenting 
the resolutions before a crowded house, he said : " We are in the midst 
of a revolution hitherto bloodless, but rapidly tending toward a total 
change of the pure republican character of our government, and to the 
concentration of all power in the hands of one man. The powers of 
Congress are paralyzed, except when exerted in conformity with his 
will, by frequent and extraordinary exercise of the Executive veto. . . . 
By the 3d of March, 1837, if the progress of innovation continues, there 
will be scarcely a vestige remaining of the government and its policy 
as they existed prior to the 3d of March, 1829. In a term of eight years, 
a little more than equal to that which was required to establish our 
liberties, the government will have been transformed into an elective 
monarchy — the worst of all forms of government." — Congressional 
Debates, ed. Gales and Seaton, 1834, Vol. X, Part I, p. 59. 



268 National versus Sectional Interests 

on the 28^'^ of March last modified by the mover and passed 
by the votes of twenty-six senators out of forty-six who were 
present and voted/ in the following words, viz. : 

Resolved^ That the President, in the late Executive proceedings in 
relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and 
power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation 
of both. 

Having had the honor, through the voluntary suffrages of 
the American people, to fill the office of President of the United 
States during the period which may be presumed to have been 
referred to in this resolution, it is sufficiently evident that the 
censure it infficts was intended for myself. Without notice, un- 
heard and untried, I thus find myself charged on the records 
of the Senate, and in a form hitherto unknown in our history, 
with the high crime of violating the laws and Constitution of 
my country. . . . 

Under the Constitution of the United States the powers and 
functions of the various departments of the Federal Govern- 
ment and their responsibilities for violation or neglect of duty 
are clearly defined, or result by necessary inference ; . . . each 
of the three great departments is independent of the others in 
its sphere of action, and when it deviates from that sphere is 
not responsible to the others further than it is expressly made 
so in the Constitution. In every other respect each of them is 
the coequal of the other two, and all are the servants of the 
American people, without power or right to control or censure 
each other in the service of their common superior [the people], 
save only in the manner and to the degree which that superior 
has prescribed. . . . 

Tested by these principles, the Resolution of the Senate is 
wholly unauthorized by the Constitution, and in derogation of 
its entire spirit. It assumes that a single branch of the legisla- 
tive department may, for the purposes of a public censure, con- 
sider and decide upon the official acts of the Executive. But in 

1 Notice that this falls short of the two-thirds majority that would 
have been necessary to convict Jackson had he been tried on a regular 
charge of impeachment. 



" The Reign of An drezv Jackson " 269 

no part of the Constitution is the President subjected to any 
such responsibility, and in no part of that instrument is any 
such power conferred on either branch of the Legislature. . . . 
The impeachment, instead of being preferred and prosecuted 
by the House of Representatives, originated in the Senate, and 
was prosecuted without the aid or concurrence of the other 
House. The oath or affirmation prescribed by the Constitution 
was not taken by the Senators, the Chief Justice did not pre- 
side, no notice of the charge was given to the accused, and no 
opportunity afforded him ... to be heard in his defense. . . . 

The honest differences of opinion which occasionally exist 
between the Senate and 4he President in regard to matters in 
which both are obliged to participate are sufficiently embarrass- 
ing ; but if the course recently adopted by the Senate shall 
hereafter be frequently pursued, it is not only obvious that the 
harmony of the relations between the President and the Senate 
will be destroyed, but that other and graver effects will ulti- 
mately ensue. If the censures of the Senate be submitted to by 
the President, the confidence of the people in his ability and 
virtue, and the character and usefulness of his Administration 
will soon be at an end, and the real power of the Government 
will fall into the hands of a body holding their offices for long 
terms, not elected by the people and not to them directly re- 
sponsible. . . . With this view, and for the reasons which have 
been stated, I do hereby solemnly protest against the afore- 
mentioned proceedings of the Senate as unauthorized by the 
Constitution. . . . 

The resolution of the Senate contains an imputation upon 
my private as well as upon my public character, and, as it must 
stand forever on their journals,^ I cannot close this substitute 
for that defense which I have not been allowed to present in 
the ordinary form without remarking that I have lived in vain 
if it be necessary to enter into a formal vindication of my char- 
acter and purposes from such an imputation. ... In the his- 
tory of conquerors and usurpers, never in the fire of youth nor 

^ As a matter of fact, after a bitter fight in the Senate lasting for 
three years, and headed by Thomas H. Benton, the resolution was 
expunged, January 16, 1837. 



270 National versus Sectional Interests 

in the vigor of manhood could I find an attraction to lure me 
from the path of duty, and now I shall scarcely find an induce- 
ment to commence their career of ambition, when grey hairs 
and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, call 
me to the contemplation of other worlds, where conquerors 
cease to be honored and usurpers expiate their crimes. The 
only ambition I can feel is to acquit myself to Him to whom I 
must soon render an account of my stewardship, to serve my 
fellow-men, and live respected and honored in the history of 
my country. No, the ambition which leads me on is an anxious 
desire and a fixed determination to return to the people unim- 
paired the sacred trust they have confided to my charge ; to 
heal the wounds of the Constitution and preserve it from further 
violation ; to persuade my countrymen, so far as I may, that it 
is not in a splendid government supported by powerful monopo- 
lies and aristocratical establishments that they will find happi- 
ness or their liberties protection, but in a plain system, void of 
pomp, protecting all and granting favors to none, dispensing its 
blessings, like the dews of Heaven, unseen and unfelt save in 
the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. . . . 

I respectfully request that this message and protest may be 
entered at length on the journals of the Senate. 

Andrew Jackson 

68. The *' The secession movement," says Professor Houston, 

dfs^unionf '' <^^t^s definitely from 1824. In the period from 1824 to 

1830-1832 1832 all the principles that were fought for in the Civil 

[281] ^2X were formally enunciated by South Carolina, and a 

determination to apply them, if it should become necessary, 

was repeatedly expressed." ^ In 1830 George McDuffie, 

Congressman from South Carolina, a sensational orator, 

and a most extreme advocate of state sovereignty, denounced 

the oppressive tariff measures in a fiery speech before a 

crowded House. 

1 D. F. Houston, A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina, 
p. V. 



' ' The Reigii of A ndreiv Jackson " 271 

It is vain, then, that the people of the South attempt to 
palter with this question, or to disguise any longer the sad 
reality of their condition. They have no security against tax- 
ation, but the will of those who have a settled interest and a 
fixed determination to increase their burdens ; they have no 
rights of property, no title to that commerce which gives the 
principal value to the productions of their industry, which 
they do not hold by the same miserable and degrading tenure. 
They are, to all intents and purposes, the slaves of northern 
monopolists. If I were called on to give a definition of slavery, 
I could not use language more appropriate than that which 
should accurately describe the condition of the people of the 
Southern States. 

There is no form of despotism that has ever existed upon 
the face of the earth, more monstrous and horrible than that of 
a representative Government acting beyond the sphere of its re- 
sponsibility. Liberty is an empty sound, and representation worse 
than a vain delusion, unless the action of the Government be so 
regulated that responsibility and power shall be co-extensive. 
Now, I would be glad to know, under what responsibility the 
majority of this House act, in imposing burdens upon the in- 
dustry of the southern people, and in waging this merciless war- 
fare against their commerce. Are they, in the slightest degree, 
responsible to those upon whom they impose these heavy bur- 
dens ? Have they any feelings of common interest or common 
sympathy to restrain them from oppression and tyranny ? Does 
the system of prohibitory duties, which falls with such destructive 
power upon the dearest interests of the southern people, impose 
any burden, or inflict any injury at all, upon the constituents of 
that majority by which it has been adopted ? 

The very reverse of this is the truth. The majority which 
imposes these oppressive taxes upon the people of the South, 
so far from being responsible to them, . . . are responsible to 
the very men who have been, for the last ten years, making the 
welkin ring with their clamors for the imposition of these very 
burdens. Yes, sir, those who lay the iron hand of unconstitu- 
tional and lawless taxation upon the people of the southern 
States, are not the representatives of those who pay the taxes, 



272 National versus Sectiojial Interests 

or have any participation in it, but the representatives of those 
who receive the bounty, and put it in their pockets. . . . 

I am aware that the answer given to all this will be, that it is 
the right of the majority to govern, and the duty of the minority 
to submit. There is no political principle more undeniably true, 
in all the cases to which it properly applies. . . . 

It is contrary to the clearest principles of natural justice, that 
the majority, merely because they have the power, should violate 
the rights and destroy the separate and peculiar interests of the 
minority. This would make power and right synonymous terms. 
The majority have no natural right, in any case to govern the 
minority. It is a mere conventional right, growing out of neces- 
sity and convenience. On the contrary, the right of the minority 
to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, without any un- 
just interference on the part of the majority, is the most sacred 
of the natural rights of man. 

When the great antagonistic interests of society become 
arrayed against each other, particularly when they are separated 
by distance, and distinguished by a difference of climate, char- 
acter, and civil institutions, the great object of the Government 
should undoubtedly be, not to become the partisan of either of 
those interests, but to interpose its power for the purpose of 
preventing the stronger from destroying the weaker. Instead, 
however, of assuming this attitude, instead of restraining the 
major interest from doing this act of injustice and oppression, 
this Government degrades itself into the character of a partisan 
of the stronger interest, and an instrument of its oppression. It 
cannot be otherwise, sir, as long as the majority in Congress, 
being nothing more than the agent of the major interest in the 
Confederacy, assumes the power of arbitrarily and unjustly ap- 
propriating to its own use the rightful and exclusive property 
of the minority. 

Only a few weeks before this speech of McDuflfie's in 
the House, Daniel Webster, in his famous reply to Senator 
Hayne of South Carolina, had given classic expression to 
the doctrine of the sovereignty of the Union, basing his 



'' The Reign of Aiidrezv Jackson " 273 

argument on the two clauses of the Constitution which he 
called '' the keystone of the arch," namely : that the Con- 
stitution and the laws made in pursuance of it were the 
''supreme law of the land," in spite of anything in the 
Constitution or laws of any state (Art. VI, par. 2) ; and 
the power of the Supreme Court of the United States 
should '' extend to all cases . . . arising under the Consti- 
tution and laws of the Union " (Art. Ill, Sect. II, par. i). 
Webster finds no room for state sovereignty beside this 
sovereignty of the Union : 

For myself, sir, I do not admit the competency of South 
Carolina, or any other State, to prescribe my constitutional 
duty ; or to settle, between me and the people, the validity of 
laws of Congress, for which I have voted. I decline her um- 
pirage. I have not sworn to support the Constitution according 
to her construction of its clauses. I have not stipulated by my 
oath of office or otherwise, to come under any responsibility, 
except to the people, and those whom they have appointed to 
pass upon the question, whether laws, supported by my votes, 
conform to the Constitution of the Country.-^ And, sir, if we 
look to the general nature of the case, could anything have 
been more preposterous, than to make a government for the 
whole Union, and yet leave its powers subject, not to one inter- 
pretation, but to thirteen or twenty-four interpretations ? Instead 
of one tribunal, established by all, responsible to all, with power 
to decide for all, shall constitutional questions be left to four- 
and-twenty popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for itself, 
and none bound to respect the decision of others ; and each at 

1 Webster refers to the Supreme Court. But the people " appointed " 
the Supreme Court only in the sense of accepting a constitution pro- 
viding for the establishment of that body. The members of the Court 
are " appointed " by the president. Furthermore, the Constitution no- 
where explicitly confers on the Court the power to decide whether laws 
" conform to the Constitution of the country." That power was assumed 
as a necessary part of its right to decide cases arising under the Con- 
stitution and laws of the United States. 



274 National versus Sectional Interests 

liberty, too, to give a new construction on every new election 
of its own members ? Would anything with such a principle in 
it, or rather with such a destitution of all principle, be fit to be 
called a government? No, sir. It should not be denominated 
a Constitution. It should be called, rather, a collection of topics 
for everlasting controversy ; heads of debate for a disputatious 
people. It would not be a government. It would not be ade- 
quate to any practical good, or fit for any country to live under 

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to 
see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not 
coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds 
that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not 
accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to 
see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of 
the abyss below ; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in 
the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly 
bent on considering, not how the Union may best be preserved, 
but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it 
should be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we 
have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, 
for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate 
the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may 
not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened 
what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for 
the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on 
the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; 
on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with 
civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their 
last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous en- 
sign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the 
earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming 
in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a 
single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable 
interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words 
of delusion and folly, '' Liberty first and Union afterwards"; but 
everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing 
on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the 
land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other 



'' The Reign of Andrezv Jackson " 275 

sentiment, dear to every true American heart, — Liberty and 
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! 

The agitation over the tariff and states' rights divided 
the state of South CaroHna into the "Union" and " Nul- 
Ufication " parties. And when the legislature of 183 1 
authorized Governor Hamilton to call a convention of the 
people of the state to deliberate on their relation to the 
Union, both parties began an active campaign to win dele- 
gates. The Union party planned a grand program (pro- 
cession, speeches, banquet) for July 4, 183 1, at Charleston, 
"to celebrate the fifty-fifth anniversary of American inde- 
pendence." President Jackson was invited to speak at the 
banquet. His reply to the committee was as follows : 

Washington City, June 14, 1831 
Gentlemen, — 

It would afford me much pleasure, could I at the same time 
accept your invitation of the 5'^^ instant and that with which I 
was before honored by the municipal authorities of Charleston. 
A necessary attention to the duties of my office must deprive 
me of the gratification I should have had in paying, under such 
circumstances, a visit to the State of which I feel a pride in 
calling myself a citizen by birth. 

Could I accept your invitation, it would be with the hope 
that all parties — all the men of talent, exalted patriotism, and 
private worth, who have been divided in the manner you de- 
scribe — might be found united before the altar of their country 
on the day set apart for the solemn celebration of its independ- 
ence — independence which cannot exist without Union, and 
with it is eternal. 

Every enlightened citizen must know that a separation, could 
it be effected,- would begin with civil discord, and end in colonial 
dependence on a foreign power, and obliteration from the list of 
nations. But he should also see that high and sacred duties which 
must and will, at all hazards, be performed, present an insur- 
mountable barrier to the success of any plan of disorganization, 



276 National versus Sectional Interests 

by whatever patriotic name it may be decorated, or whatever 
high feelings may be arrayed for its support. . . . 

Knowing as I do the private worth and public virtues of dis- 
tinguished citizens to whom declarations inconsistent with an 
attachment to this Union have been ascribed, I cannot but hope 
that, if accurately reported, they were the effect of momentary 
excitement, not deliberate design ; and that such men can never 
have formed the project of pursuing a course of redress through 
any other than constitutional means ; but if I am mistaken in 
this charitable hope, then in the language of the father of our 
country, I would conjure them to estimate properly '' the im- 
mense value of your national Union to your collective and 
individual happiness " ; to " cherish a cordial, habitual, and im- 
movable attachment to it, accustoming yourselves to think and 
speak of it as the palladium of your political safety and pros- 
perity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety ; dis- 
countenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it 
can, in any event, be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning on 
the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of 
our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which 
now link together the various parts." . . . 

The grave subjects introduced in your letter of invitation 
have drawn from me the frank exposition of opinions which I 
have neither interest nor inclination to conceal. . . . 

I have the honor to be, with great respect, your humble and 
obedient servant, Andrew Jackson ^ 

The Nullification party grew steadily stronger in South 
Carolina, and when Congress, in the tariff bill of 1832, 

1 The toast to President Jackson at the dinner was : " He will fill the 
measure of his glory by preserving the Union without impairing the 
rights of the States." The bitterness to which partisanship can lead is 
shown in John Quincy Adams' entry in his diary on the occasion when 
the man who wrote the excellent letter above quoted was given an 
honorary degree at Harvard: "Myself an affectionate child of our abna 
mater^ I would not be present to witness her disgrace in conferring her 
highest literary honors upon a barbarian who could not write a sentence 
of grammar and hardly could spell his name." — John Quincy Adams, 
Memoirs, Vol. IV, p. 5. 



'' The Reigji of Andrew Jackson " 277 

refused to abandon the doctrine of protection, Governor 
Hamilton, on the authorization of the legislature, called a 
convention to deal with the tariff laws. On November 24, 
1832, the convention, by a vote of 136 to 26, passed the 
following ordinance : 

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by various acts, 
purporting to be acts laying duties and imposts on foreign im- 
ports, but in reality intended for the protection of domestic 
manufactures . . . hath exceeded its just powers under the 
Constitution, which confers on it no authority to afford such 
protection, and hath violated the true meaning and intent of 
the Constitution, which provides for equality in imposing the 
burthens of taxation upon the several States and portions of the 
Confederacy. . . . 

We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina, in 
Convention assembled, do declare and ordain . . . that the sev- 
eral acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, 
purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on 
the importation of foreign commodities . . . are unauthorized by 
the Constitution of the United States, and violate the true mean- 
ing and intent thereof, and are null, void, and no law, nor bind- 
ing upon this State, its officers or citizens. . . . 

And it is further ordained, that it shall not be lawful for any 
of the constituted authorities, whether of this State or of the 
United States, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the 
said acts within the limits of this State. . . . 

And it is further ordained, that all persons now holding any 
office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or military, under this State 
. . . shall . . . take an oath well and truly to obey, execute, and 
enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the Legislature 
as may be passed in pursuance thereof. . . . 

And we, the people of South Carolina, to the end that it may 
be fully understood by the Government of the United States, 
and the people of the co-States, that we are determined to main- 
tain this, our ordinance and declaration, at every hazard, do 
further declare that we will not submit to the application of force, 



2/8 National versus Sectional Interests 

on the part of the P'ederal Government, to reduce this State to 
obedience ; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, 
of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval 
force against the State of South Carolina, her constituted au- 
thorities or citizens ... as inconsistent with the longer continu- 
ance of South Carolina in the Union : and that the people of 
this State will . . . forthwith proceed to organize a separate Gov- 
ernment, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and 
independent States may of right do. 

Done in Convention at Columbia, 24 November 1832. 

A Nevv^ Party 

69. Early Fanny Kemble, the famous English actress, who visited 

the railroad America in 1832, gives the following amusing description 
[290] of a journey by boat, stage, and railroad from New York 
to Philadelphia. The party embarked on the Philadelphia 
boat at six o'clock on an October morning, at the docks at 
the foot of Barclay Street, and crossing New York Bay 
sailed a few miles up the Raritan River. 

At about half-past ten we reached the place where we leave 
the river, to proceed across a part of the State of New Jersey 
to the Delaware. The landing was beyond measure wretched : 
the shore shelved down to the water's edge ; and its marshy, 
clayey, sticky soil, rendered doubly soft and squashy by the 
damp weather, was strewn over with broken potsherds, stones, 
and bricks, by way of pathway ; these, however, presently failed, 
and some slippery planks, half immersed in mud, were the only 
roads to the coaches that stood ready to receive the passengers 
of the steam-boat. Oh, these coaches ! English eye hath not 
seen, English ear hath not heard, nor hath it entered into the 
heart of Englishmen to conceive the surpassing clumsiness and 
wretchedness of these leathern inconveniences. They are shaped 
something like boats, the sides being merely leathern pieces, re- 
movable at pleasure, but which, in bad weather, are buttoned 
down to protect the inmates from the wet. . . . For the first 



" The Reign of Andreiv Jackson " 279 

few minutes I thought I must have fainted from the intolerable 
sensation of smothering which I experienced. However, the 
leathers having been removed, and a little more air obtained, I 
took heart of grace and resigned myself to my fate. Away 
walloped the four horses, trotting with their front, and galloping 
with their hind legs ; and away we went after them, bumping, 
thumping, jumping, jolting, shaking, tossing, tumbling, over the 
wickedest road, I do think the cruellest, hard-heartedest road 
that ever wheel rumbled upon. Through bog^^and marsh, and 
ruts wider and deeper than any Christian ruts I ever saw, with 
the roots of trees protruding across our path ; their boughs every 
now and then giving us an affectionate scratch through the win- 
dows ; and more than once a half-demolished trunk or stump 
lying in the middle of the road lifting us up, and letting us down 
again, with the most awful variations of our poor coach body 
from its natural position. Bones of me ! what a road ! Even 
my father's solid proportions could not keep their level, but were 
jerked up to the roof and down again every three minutes. Our 
companions seemed nothing dismayed by these wondrous per- 
formances of a coach and four, but laughed and talked inces- 
santly, the young ladies at the very top of their voices, and with 
the national nasal twang. . . . 

At the end of fourteen miles we turned into a swampy field, 
the whole fourteen coachfuls of us, and, by the help of Heaven, 
bag and baggage were packed into the coaches which stood on 
the rail-way ready to receive us. These carriages were not drawn 
by steam, like those on the Liverpool rail-way,^ but by horses, 
with the mere advantage in speed afforded by the iron ledges, 
which, to be sure, compared with our previous progress through 
the ruts, was considerable. Our coachful got into the first car- 
riage of the train, escaping, by way of especial grace, the dust 
which one's predecessors occasion. This vehicle had but two 
seats, in the usual fashion ; each of which held four of us. The 
whole inside was lined with blazing scarlet leather, and the 

1 The Liverpool and Manchester railway was opened in 1830. The 
Stephensons' prize locomotive, the Rocket^ weighing four and one-half 
tons, drew cars at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and demonstrated 
the success of the steam engine for rapid railway locomotion. 



28o National versus Sectional bit crests 

windows shaded with stuff curtains of the same refreshing color ; 
which, with full complement of passengers, on a fine, sunny, 
American summer's day, must make as pretty a little miniature 
hell as may be, I should think. The baggage-waggon, which 
went before us, a little obstructed the view. . . . This railroad 
is an infinite blessing ; 't is not yet finished, but shortly will be 
so, and then the whole of that horrible fourteen miles will be 
performed in comfort and decency in less than half the time. 
In about an hour and a half we reached the end of our railroad 
part of the journey, and found another steamboat waiting for 
us, when we all embarked on the Delaware. . . . 

At about four o'clock we reached Philadelphia, having per- 
formed the journey between that and New York (a distance of a 
hundred miles) in less than ten hours, in spite of bogs, ruts, and 
all other impediments. The manager came to look after us and our 
goods, and we were presently stowed into a coach which conveyed 
us to the Mansion House, the best reputed inn in Philadelphia. 

Miss Kemble had hardly left our strenuous shores when 
another still more distinguished Englishwoman, Miss 
Harriet Martineau, historian, essayist, economist, came for 
a two years' visit. The results of Miss Martineau's exten- 
sive and discriminating observations on our politics, our 
industries, our commerce, our manners and morals, our work 
and our worship, our charities and our children, were em- 
bodied in two remarkable volumes entitled '' Society in 
America." Miss Martineau writes of her journeys in the 
South in the spring of 1835 : 

The only railroads completed in the south, when I was there, 
were the Charleston and Augusta one, two short ones in the 
States of Alabama and Mississippi, and one of five miles from 
Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans. There is likely to be soon a 
magnificent line from Charleston to Cincinnati; and the line from 
Norfolk, Virginia, to New York, is now almost uninterrupted. . . . 

My journeys on the Charleston and Augusta railroad were 
by far the most fatiguing of any I underwent in the country. 



** The Reigii of A ndrew Jackson " 281 

The motion and the noise are distracting. Whether this is owing 
to its being built on piles in many places ; whether the fault is 
in the ground or the construction, I do not know. Almost all 
the rail-road travelling in America is very fatiguing and noisy. 
I was told that this was chiefly owing to the roads being put to 
use as soon as finished, instead of the work being left to settle 
for some months. How far this is true I do not pretend to say. 
The railroads which I saw in progress were laid on wood instead 
of stone. The patentee discovered that wood settles after frost 
more evenly than stone. The original cost in the State of New 
York, is about two thousand dollars per mile.^ 

One great inconvenience of the American rail-roads is that, 
from wood being used for fuel, there is an incessant shower of 
large sparks, destructive to dress and comfort, unless all the 
windows are shut ; which is impossible in warm weather. Some 
serious accidents from fire have happened in this way ; and 
during my last trip on the Columbia and Philadelphia rail-road, 
a lady in the car had a shawl burned to destruction on her 
shoulders ; and I found that my own gown had thirteen holes 
in it ; and my veil, with which I saved my eyes, more than could 
be counted.^ . . . 

There are many rail-roads in Virginia, and a line to New York, 
through Maryland and Delaware. There is in Kentucky a line 
from Louisville to Lexington. But it is in Pennsylvania, New 
York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, that they abound. All 
have succeeded so admirably, that there is no doubt of the estab- 
lishment of this means of communication over nearly the whole 
of the United States, within a few years, as by-ways to great 
high-ways [rivers] which Nature has made to run through this 
vast country. ... I believe the best-constructed rail-road in the 

1 The average cost of modern railroad construction in the United 
States is given by Webb at $70,000 per mile. — New Dictionary of 
Statistics, p. 513. London, 191 1. 

^ These annoying injuries to apparel were not the only dangers of the 
early railroads. The first American-built locomotive, the Best Friend, 
running on the Charleston railroad in 1830, was blown up "because an 
attendant, annoyed by the sound of the escaping steam, fastened down 
the safety-valve " ! 



282 National versus Sectional Interests 

States is the Boston and Lowell in Massachusetts ; length, twenty- 
five miles. Its importance, from the amount of traffic upon it, 
may be estimated from the fact that some thousands of dollars 
were spent, the winter after it was opened, in clearing away a 
fall of snow from it. It was again covered, the next night. 

Another line from Boston is to Providence, Rhode Island, 
forty-three miles long. This opens a very speedy communication 
with New York ; the distance, 227 miles, being performed in 
twenty hours, by rail-road and steam-boat. . . . 

There is now an uninterrupted communication from the 
Atlantic to the far end of Lake Michigan. It only remains to 
extend a line thence to the Mississippi, and the circle is complete. 

70. Labor The decade 1 830- 1 840 was marked by a great number of 

unrest in the ,• r i- ,• u-t-uj 

thirties enterprises, reforms, and mnovations which showed an 

[291] awakening of interest among the people at large in politi- 
cal and social questions, and a participation of the people 
at large in such questions, to an extent never before known 
in our history. The widening of the suffrage, the substitu- 
tion of elective for appointive offices, humanitarian reforms 
in workhouses, asylums, and prisons, the multiplication of 
inventions, the frequency of mass meetings and conventions, 
the organization of temperance societies — are all different 
aspects of the '' new democracy." One of the most inter- 
esting features of this social ferment is the labor agitation 
of the decade, of which Professor McMaster gives the 
following summary: 

Along the sea-board, the hard times which followed the re- 
moval of the deposits [1833], and the depressed state of business 
of every sort, caused by the State banks refusing loans, was 
followed by a reduction of wages, and discontent among the 
workingmen everywhere. . . . Four eastern factories had dis- 
missed eleven hundred men. The blast furnaces of New Jersey 
would soon be put out. In Philadelphia but eight building per- 
mits had been issued during 1834, as against six hundred for 



'' The Reign of Andreiv Jacks 07i " 283 

the same period in 1833. These were but typical instances of 
a general condition which bore heavily on the banks, the manu- 
facturers, the merchants, and the workingmen. It was better 
that wages be low and many have work, than be high and few 
find employment. 

The workingmen, however, thought otherwise, and the old 
agitation for shorter hours, better pay, and combined action went 
on with renewed energy. In October of 1833 committees of 
the various trade organizations in Philadelphia were appointed 
to confer on the ills of labor. In Boston, in January 1834, steps 
were taken to form a trades union of mechanics, and in March, 
in each of these cities a General Trades Union was formed, a 
constitution adopted, and officers elected. At Lowell in February 
the girls in the factories turned out to prevent a reduction of 
wages ; but others from the country filled their places and the 
attempt failed. . . . 

Striking cabinet-makers in New York became so enraged at 
the importation of French furniture that a band of them entered 
an auction room where some was for sale, and destroyed bureaus, 
sofas, and tables to the value of a thousand dollars. . . . Coal- 
heavers on the Schuylkill wharves in Philadelphia struck for a 
laboring day from six in the morning to six in the evening, with 
an hour for breakfast and another for dinner ; assaulted those 
who would not join them, and raised a riot the mayor found it 
difficult to put down. . . . The seamstresses, who made shirts 
and pantaloons, now appealed to the public and stated their 
grievances. For sewing shirts they were paid eight, ten, or 
twelve and a half cents each. By working from six in the morn- 
ing till nine at night they could make nine in the course of a 
week ; thus earning seventy-two, ninety, or a hundred and twelve 
cents per week. Carpenters were paid a dollar and a quarter for 
ten hours' work and masons a dollar and three quarters for ten 
hours of labor. That women should be given less for a week's 
work than carpenters and masons for one day's work was cruel 
and unjust. 

After a series of meetings in Independence Square, and a 
street parade, the carpenters adopted a report of a committee 
demanding a six to six day ; divided the city into three districts 



284 National versus Sectional Interests 

with a committee for each to watch the shops, and petitioned 
councils to adopt the ten-hour system for all city work. . . . 
Catching the movement of the day, the plumbers and wood- 
sawyers struck for higher pay, gangs of tipsy seamen paraded 
the streets with a banner inscribed : " Eighteen dollars a month 
and small stores [grog] or death ! " ; the tailoresses, seamstresses, 
binders, folders, and stockworkers demanded more wages, and 
the block and pump makers, in a card, thanked their employers 
for accepting the ten-hour day without a struggle. . . . 

Members of the Philadelphia Trades Union met in Independ- 
ence Square, heard speeches by labor leaders from New England, 
approved the stand taken by the Boston house-wrights for a ten- 
hour day, and were urged to give up some luxury, as tobacco, 
and contribute twenty-five cents a week for the support of the 
Boston strikers. . . . 

The following extracts from contemporaneous documents 
comprise {a) an appeal for the striking bakers in New York, 
ib) the call for a convention to organize a general trade- 
union in Boston, and ic) a communication on child labor 
from '' many operatives " in the Philadelphia factories. 

{a) 
STRIKE OF THE JOURNEYMEN BAKERS 

To THE Public : the undersigned Committee, appointed by 
the general Trades' Union, having now before them a well at- 
tested statement of facts which sufficiently prove that the con- 
dition of the Journeymen Bakers in this city has been for some 
time in reality much worse than that of the southern slaves, 
submit for the inspection of the public a few instances taken 
from a very long list. 

I St. Three men and a boy have had to bake 60 barrels per 
week, have had to labor 115 hours each week (doing six men's 
work) and have received about 50 cents per barrel. 

2"*^. Four men have had to bake 54 barrels per week, have 
had to labor about 112 hours each week (doing nearly six men's 
work) and have received about 60 cents per barrel. . . . 



" The Reign of Andreiv Jackson " 285 

The above facts undoubtedly prove all that we have asserted,' 
and now we call upon the public to know whether those em- 
ployers who persist in requiring from their men much more 
than their nature can long bear, viz. : from 18 to 20 hours labor 
out of the 24 — are to be sustained in their demands, or whether 
they will not assist the oppressed Journeymen in their present 
attempt to procure a fair equivalent for their labor. 

We have also to state that the General Trades' Union have 
resolved to support the Journeymen Bakers in their present 
course, and are determined by all just and honorable means, to 
raise them if possible to a fair standing among the other 
mechanics of the city. 

In conclusion, we respectfully suggest, that the public in gen- 
eral can in no way more effectually support our cause, than by 
bestowing their patronage on those employers who have nobly 
agreed to give the wages required.^ In order to accomplish this 
end, we give below a list of those employers, as far as we have 
ascertained, and shall continue to do so from day to day, until 
all difficulties are adjusted. 

William Hewitt, and others, Committee of the 
General Trades Union 
New York, June 10, 1834 

TRADES UNION OF BOSTON AND VICINITY 

Fellow Citizens : At a meeting of the workingmen of this 
city, holden at the old Common Council Room, Court Square, 
School Street, January 21, 1834, the subject of Trades' Unions 
came before the meeting. After many interesting remarks, a 
Committee was appointed to take such measures as they should 
deem expedient to effect the formation of a General Trades' 
Union of the mechanics of this city and vicinity. The Com- 
mittee thus appointed assembled at Bascom's Hotel, School- 
street, on the evening of January 28^^^ ult. They took the 

1 A list of twenty-three such employers followed. The terms demanded 
by the three hundred members of the Bakers' Trade Union were a 
dollar per barrel with an average of nine barrels a week for each man, 
and no work on Sunday before 8 o'clock in the evening. 



286 National versus Sectional Interests 

subject into deep and serious consideration, which resulted in a 
vote to issue a Circular to the Mechanics of Boston and vicinity, 
in order to lay before them the nature and design of the pro- 
posed Union of Trades. The several trades were generally 
represented in the committee.^ 

Judging by past experience, and close observation of causes 
and effects, which act in reducing the Working Class in all coun- 
tries to a situation far from enviable, your Committee deem it of 
the very highest moment, that something should be done to im- 
prove the condition of the mechanics of our city and vicinity, which 
will prevent the fatal results which have followed the adoption of 
a cruel and heartless policy towards the Mechanics of Europe. . . . 

The cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, have 
adopted this method of concentrated action [in trade-unions] 
to the satisfaction of all concerned. Since the formation of 
Trades' Unions in those cities, we hear nothing of difficulties 
and dissentions between employers and employed, which in all 
cases produce dissatisfaction, discontent, and distress ; but em- 
ployers and employed seem to be harmoniously united for the 
mutual benefit of both, which ought always to be the case. 

If there are a few in those cities more avaricious than others, 
who wish to oppress their fellow men to aggrandize themselves, 
the good sense and humanity of the greater number of honest 
employers forbid the attempt, which, if made under the present 
circumstances growing out of Trades' Unions would inevitably 
result in total failure. . . . 

It would be impossible to give a detail of all the advantages 
of such a Union of the Trades, but one advantage will be ap- 
parent to you all at first sight. Such a Union will produce a 
friction of mind, and no doubt that sparks of intellectual fire 
will be thus elicited, which will electrify, enlighten, and warm 
the whole body. . . . 

The Committee earnestly recommend that the Mechanics of 
the towns in the vicinity of Boston would send delegates to the 

1 In the convention which met March 6, in response to this call, 
there were delegates representing curriers, cabinetmakers, tailors, 
masons, coopers, shipwrights, painters, ropemakers, iron founders, 
printers, carpenters, sailmakers, pianomakers, and machinists. 



" The Reig7i of Andrew Jackson " 287 

proposed Convention, furnished with the proper credentials. . . . 
Those trades which have societies already formed are requested 
to take measures to be represented in the Convention. All of 
which is respectfully submitted by the 

Committee 
Boston, Feb. 11, 1834 

if) 

CHILDREN IN THE PHILADELPHIA FACTORIES 

In looking over one of your late numbers [of the Mechanics' 
Free Tress] I was rejoiced to find that some friend has noticed 
the sufferings of people employed in our manufactories ; par- 
ticularly in that of cotton. It is a well known fact, that the 
principal part of the helps in cotton factories consist of boys 
and girls, we may safely say from six to seventeen years of age, 
and are confined to steady employment during the longest days 
in the year, from daylight until dark, allowing at the outside 
one hour and a half per day. In consequence of this close con- 
finement, it renders it entirely impossible for the parents of such 
children to obtain for them any education or knowledge, save 
that of working that machine, which they are compelled to work, 
and that too with a small sum, that is hardly sufficient to sup- 
port nature, while they on the other hand are rolling in wealth, 
of[f] the vitals of these poor children every day. We noticed 
the observation of our Pawtucket friend in your number of 
June 19, 1830, lamenting the grievances of the children em- 
ployed in those factories. We think his observations very correct, 
with regard to their being brought up as ignorant as Arabs of 
the Desert ; for we are confident that not more than one-sixth 
of the boys and girls employed in such factories are capable of 
reading or writing their own name. We have known many in- 
stances where parents who are capable of giving their children 
a trifling education one at a time, deprived of that opportunity 
by their employer's threats, that if they did take one child from 
their employ, (a short time for school,) such family must leave 
the employment — and we have even known these threats put 
in execution. Now, as our friend observes, we may establish 
schools and academies, and devise every means for the instruction 



288 National versus Sectional hiterests 

of youth in vain, unless we also give time for application ; we 
have heard it remarked to some employers, that it would be 
commendable to congress to shorten the hours of labour in fac- 
tories ; the reply was : it would be an infringement on the 
rights of the people. We know the average number of hands 
employed by one manufacturer to be, at the lowest estimate, 
fifty men, women, and children. Now, the query is: whether 
this individual, or this number employed by him, is the people. 
It is not our intention at present, to undertake a thorough 
discussion of this interesting subject, but rather to give some 
hints on the subject, which, we hope, may attract the notice of 
your readers, and be the means of arousing some abler pen to 
write on the matter; for we think it is high time the public 
should begin to notice the evil that it begets. We see the evil 
that follows the system of long labor much better than we can 
express it ; but we hope our weak endeavors may not prove in- 
effectual. We must acknowledge our inability prevents us from 
expressing our sentiments fluently, at present, but we hope to 
appear again in a more correct manner. 

Many Operatives 



PART V. SLAVERY AND THE WEST 



1 



( 



PART V. SLAVERY AND THE 
WEST 

CHAPTER XI 

THE GATHERING CLOUD 

Slavery in the Colonies 

The prevalence of slavery in the colonies in the seven- 7i. The pe- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries was chiefly due to the q^^^ ^ ^^^_ 
need of laborers for the cultivation of the soil. A scanty nists for 
population, without manufactures, the colonists, especially ^^®^^' ^^^ 
in the South, had to work large areas of land to produce 
the tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo, and food-stuffs to exchange 
in Europe for their luxuries and many of their necessities. 
So, for example, the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, in their 
"Proposals to First Settlers," in 1663, offered "to the 
owner of every negro or man slave brought thither to settle 
within the first year 20 acres and for every woman negro 
or slave 10 acres of land." ^ James Oglethorpe, founder of 
the neighboring colony of Georgia, was opposed to slavery 
on moral grounds, and immediately after the granting of 
the charter of Georgia the inhabitants were ordered " not 
to hire, keep, lodge, board, or employ within the limits 
of the Province any Black or Negro." Nevertheless the 

1 Peter Force, Tracts, Vol. IV, No. 2, p. 25. At the census of 1790, 
Massachusetts was the only state to report no slaves. The list of slaves 
in New York in 1755 (excluding the counties of Albany, New York, and 
Suffolk) fills twenty-four pages of O'Callaghan, Documentary History 
of the State of New York, Vol. Ill, pp. 844-868. 

291 



292 Slavery and the West 

economic pressure of the need for laborers was so great 
that five years later the following petition was sent to the 
Trustees of the colony : 

May it please Your Honours ; 

We whose Names are under-written, being all Settk?'s, Free- 
holders and l7ihabitants of the Province of Georgia^ and being 
sensible of the great Pains and Care exerted by You in En- 
deavouring to settle this Colony, since it has been under Your 
Protection and Management ; Do unanimously join to lay before 
You, with the utmost Regret, the following Particulars. . . . We 
have most of us settled in this Colony in Pursuance of the De- 
scription and Recommendation given of it by You in Britain ; 
and from the Experience of residing here several Years, do find 
that it is impossible that the Measures hitherto laid down and 
pursued for making it a Colony can succeed. None of all those 
who have planted their Land have been able to raise Sufficient 
Produce to maintain their Families in Bread kind only, even tho' 
as much Application and Industry have been exerted to bring 
it about as could be done by Men engaged in an Affair on which 
they believed the Welfare of themselves and their Posterity so 
much depended ; ... so that by the accumulated Expences every 
Year, of Provisions, Cloathing and Medicines, for themselves, 
Families and Servants, several hath expended all their Money, 
nay, even run considerably in Debt, and so been obliged to leave 
off Planting and making further Improvements. . . . This being 
now the general State of the Colony, it must be obvious that 
People cannot subsist by their Land, according to the present 
Establishment; and this being a Truth resulting from Tryal, 
Practice and Experience, cannot be contradicted by any theorical 
Scheme or Reasoning. The Land then, according to the present 
Constitution, not being capable to maintain the Settlers here, 
they must unavoidably have recourse to and depend upon Trade : 
But to our woful Experience likewise, the same Causes that 
prevented the^rj-/, obstruct the lattery for tho' the Situation of 
this Place is exceeding well adapted for Trade, and if it was 
encouraged, might be much more improved by the Inhabitants ; 
yet the Difficulties and Restrictions, which we hitherto have and 



The Gathering Cloud 293 

at present do labour under, debar us of that Advantage : Timber 
is the only Thing we have here which we might export, and 
notwithstanding we are obliged to fall [fell] it in Planting our 
Land ; yet we cannot manufacture it for a Foreign Market but 
at double the Expence of other Colonies ; as for Instance, the 
River of May [St. Johns River, Florida], which is but twenty 
Miles from us, with the Allowance of Negroes, load Vessels 
with that Commodity at one Half of the Price that we can do ; 
and what should induce Persons to bring Ships here, when they 
can be loaded with one Half the Expence so near us ; therefore 
the Timber on the Land is only a continual Charge to the Pos- 
sessors of it, tho' of very great Advantage in all the Northern 
Colonies, where Negroes are allowed, and consequently Labour 
cheap. We do not in the least doubt but that in Time Silk and 
Wine may be produced here, especially the former ; but since 
the Cultivation of Land with White Servants only, cannot raise 
Provisions for our Families as before mentioned, therefore it is 
likewise impossible to carry on these Manufactures according 
to the present Constitution. It is very well known, that Carolina 
can raise everything that this Colony can ; and they having their 
I^abour so much cheaper will always ruin our Market, unless 
we are in Some Measure on a Footing with them. . . . 

Your Honours, we imagine, are not insensible of the Numbers 
that have left this Province, not being able to support them- 
selves and Families any longer ; and those still remaining, who 
had Money of their own and Credit with their Friends, have 
laid out most of th^ former in Improvements, and lost the latter 
for doing it on such precarious Titles. And upon Account of 
the present Establishment, not above two or three Persons, 
except those brought on Charity and Servants sent by You, 
have come here for the Space of two Years past, either to settle 
Land or encourage Trade, neither do we hear of any such likely 
to come until we are on better Terms. . . . 

Believing You will agree to those Measures that are found 
from Experience capable to make this Colony succeed, and to 
promote which we have consumed our Money, Time and Labour ; 
we do, from a sincere Regard to its Welfare, and in Duty both 
to You and ourselves, beg Leave to lay before Your immediate 



294 Slave7y and the West 

Consideration the Tivo following chief Causes of these o\xx present 
Misfortunes and this deplorable State of the Colony, and which, 
we are certain, if granted, would be an infallible Remedy for both. 

i^*. The Want of a free Title, or Fee-simple to our Lands. . . . 

2^. The Want of the Use of Negroes, with proper Limita- 
tions ; which if granted, would both occasion great Numbers of 
White People to come here, and also render us capable to sub- 
sist ourselves, by raising Provisions upon our Lands, until we 
could make some Produce fit for Export, in some Measure to 
Ballance our Importation. We are very sensible of the Incon- 
veniences and Mischiefs that have already, and do daily arise 
from an unlimited Use of Negroes ; but we are also sensible, that 
these may be prevented by a due Limitation, such as so many to 
each white Man, or so many to such a Quantity of Land, or in 
any other Manner which Your Honours shall think most proper. 

By granting us, Gentle77ie7i, these Two Particulars, and such 
other Privileges as His Majesty's most dutiful Subjects \nA771erica 
enjoy, You will not only prevent our impending Ruin, but, we 
are fully satisfied, also will soon make this the most flourishing 
Colony possess'd by His Majesty in A77ie7'ica, and Your Mem- 
ories will be pe7petuated to all future Ages, our latest Posterity 
sou7idi7ig Your Praises, as their first Founders, Patrons, and 
Guardians. . . . 

We a7'e, 

with all due Respect, 
Your Honours 7nost dutiful a7id obedient ^rva7its 
[signed by 1 1 7 Freeholders] 
Savannah, 
cf^ December, 1738 

The Missouri Compromise 

72. The de- " I went up to the Capitol," says John Ouincy Adams 
Missouri i^"' ^is "Memoirs," under the date of February 11, 1820, 

Compromise, " .^^^ heard Mr. Kino: in the Senate, upon what is called 
1820 ^ ' ^ 

r3i2l ^^ Missouri question. . . . His manner is dignified, grave, 

earnest, but not rapid or vehement. ... He laid down the 



The Gathermg Cloud 295 

position of the natural liberty of man, and its incompati- 
bility with slavery in any shape. ... He spoke with great 
power, and the great slave-holders in the House, gnawed 
their lips and clutched their fists as they heard him." ^ 
The debate on the Missouri Compromise elicited the most 
determined assertions of principle and provoked the most 
violent bursts of passion since the struggle over the for- 
mation and adoption of the federal Constitution. King's 
famous speech and the reply of William Pinkney of Mary- 
land ^ were delivered before an excited audience in the 
Senate chamber at the height of the struggle. King argued 
for the power of Congress to restrict slavery in the western 
territories, and hence to permit them to enter the Union 
only as free states. 

The territory of Missouri is a portion of Louisiana, which 
was purchased of France, and belongs to the United States in 
full dominion ; in the language of the Constitution, Missouri is 

^ J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, Vol. IV, p. 522. Of this speech, Rufus King 
himself, writing to J. A. King, said . . . "today [I] delivered my opinions 
to the Senate ; with what effect I cannot say, but if I satisfied nobody 
else, I may say to y 011, that I satisfied myself. The cause is desperate in 
the Senate, and my object was, by taking a bold position, and defending 
it with some vigor and much confidence, to encourage & hold up others 
who were languid & discouraged. I shall be greatly misrepresented, but 
correct in my principles and able as I think to defend them and protect 
myself, this little warfare will give me no concern. Every new speech 
becomes the material of another, and the end and issue of the debate 
are beyond conjecture." — Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, 
ed. C. R. King, Vol. VI, p. 269. 

2 In his Autobiography (Vol. I, p. 60) John A. Dix says : " I was so 
fortunate as to hear the two speeches which, on opposite sides of the 
[Missouri] question, were considered the most able . . . those of Mr. 
Pinkney of Maryland against the prohibition, and Rufus King of New 
York in favor of it. It would be difficult to conceive a greater contrast 
than in the oratory of the two Senators. Mr. King's was calm, dignified, 
argumentative, forcible and at times fervid. Mr. Pinkney's was impas- 
sioned, fiery and sometimes bordering on violence, but sustained through- 
out with surpassing logical power." 



296 Slavery a7id the West 

their territory or property, and is subject like other territories 
of the United States, to the regulations and temporary govern- 
ment, which has been, or shall be prescribed by Congress. The 
clause of the Constitution which grants this power to Congress, 
is so comprehensive and unambiguous, and its purpose so mani- 
fest, that commentary will not render the power, or the object 
of its establishment, more explicit or plain. 

The Constitution further provides that '' new States may be 
admitted by Congress into this Union." As this power is con- 
ferred without limitation, the time, terms, and circumstances of 
the admission of new States, are referred to the discretion of 
Congress ; which may admit new States, but are not obliged 
to do so — of right no new State can demand admission into 
the Union, unless such demand be founded on some previous 
engagement of the United States. . . . 

The question respecting slavery in the old thirteen States 
had been decided and setded before the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, which grants no power to Congress to interfere with, 
or to change what had been so previously settled. The slave 
States, therefore, are free to continue or to abolish slavery. . . . 
The Constitution contains no express provision respecting slavery 
in a new State that may be admitted into the Union ; every 
regulation upon this subject belongs to the power whose con- 
sent is necessary to the formation and admission of new States 
into the Union. Congress may, therefore, make it a condition 
of the admission of a new State, that slavery shall be forever 
prohibited within the same. . . . 

It is further objected that the article of the act of admission 
into the Union, by which slavery should be excluded from 
Missouri, would be nugatory, as the new State in virtue of its 
sovereignty would be at liberty to revoke its consent, and annul 
the article by which slavery is excluded. 

Such revocation would be contrary to the obligations of good 
faith, which enjoins the observance of our engagements ; it 
would be repugnant to the principles on which government 
itself is founded. . . . Sovereigns, like individuals, are bound 
by their engagements, and have no moral power to break them. 
Treaties between nations repose on this principle. If a new 



The Gathering Clotid 297 

State can revoke and annul an article concluded between itself 
and the United States, by which slavery is excluded from it, it 
may revoke and annul any other article of the compact ; it may, 
for example, annul the article respecting public lands, and in 
virtue of its sovereignty, assume the right to tax and to sell 
the lands of the United States. There is yet a more satisfactory 
answer to this objection. The judicial power of the United 
States is coextensive with their legislative power. . . . Should 
the new State rescind any of the articles of compact contained 
in the act of admission into the Union . . . and should [it] pass 
a law authorizing slavery the judiciary of the United States on 
proper application, would immediately deliver from bondage, 
any person retained as a slave in said State. . . . 

If Congress possess the power to exclude slavery from Mis- 
souri, it still remains to be shown that they ought to do so. 
The examination of this branch of the subject, for obvious 
reasons, is attended with peculiar difficulty, and cannot be 
made without passing over arguments which, to some of us, 
might appear to be decisive, but the use of which, in this place, 
would call up feelings, the influence of which would disturb, if 
not defeat, the impartial consideration of the subject. Slavery, 
unhappily, exists within the United States. Enlightened men, 
in the States where it is permitted, and everywhere out of them, 
regret its existence among us, and seek for the means of limit- 
ing and of mitigating it. . . . The laws and customs of the 
States in which slavery has existed for so long a period, must 
have had their influence on the opinions and habits of the citi- 
zens, which ought not to be disregarded on the present 



1 How little regard the " leaders of federalism " (chief among whom 
at this time was King himself) had in the eyes of Southerners for the 
peculiar difficulty of the slavery question is shown by Jefferson's com- 
plaint in a letter to Charles Pinckney, September 30, 1820 : " They are 
wasting Jeremiads on the miseries of slavery, as if we were advocates 
for it. Sincerity in their declamations should direct their efforts to the 
true point of difficulty, and unite their counsels with ours in devising 
some reasonable and practicable plan of getting rid of it." — Writ- 
•ings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. P. L. Ford, Vol. X, p. 162. Perhaps the 
sagest reflections on the Missouri struggle are those expressed by 



298 Slavery and the West 

The territory of Missouri is beyond our ancient limits, and 
the inquiry whether slavery shall exist there, is open to many 
of the arguments that might be employed, had slavery never 
existed within the United States. It is a question of no ordinary 
importance. Freedom and slavery are the parties which stand 
this day before the Senate; and upon its decision the empire 
of the one or the other will be established in the new State 
which we are about to admit into the Union. 

If slavery be permitted in Missouri . . . what hope can be 
entertained that it will ever be prohibited in any of the new 
States that will be formed in the immense region west of the 
Mississippi ? Will the coextensive establishment of slavery and 
of new States throughout this region, lessen the dangers of 
domestic insurrection, or of foreign aggression ? Will this 
manner of executing the great trust of admitting new States 
into the Union, contribute to assimilate our manners and usages, 
to increase our mutual affection and confidence, and to establish 
that equality of benefits and burdens which constitutes the true 
basis of our strength and union ? Will the militia of the nation, 
which must furnish our soldiers and seamen, increase as slaves 
increase ? . . . There are limits within which our federal system 
must stop ; no one has supposed that it could be indefinitely 
extended. We are now about to pass our original boundary ; 
if this can be done without affecting the principles of our free 
governments, it can be accomplished only by the most vigilant 

Hezekiah Niles of Baltimore, in his Register of weekly events, Decem- 
ber 23, 1820: "The people of those sections of the country in which 
there are few or no slaves or persons of color, very imperfectly appre- 
ciate the wants, necessities or general principles of others differently 
situated [that is, slave-holders]. Collectively the latter deprecate slavery 
as severely as the former, and dread its increase — but individual cupidity 
and rashness acts against the common sentiment, in the hope that an 
event which everybody believes must happen, may not happen in their 
day. . . . That the slave population will, at some certain period, cause 
the most horrible catastrophe, cannot be doubted — those who possess 
them [slaves] act defensively in behalf of all that is nearest and dearest 
to them, when they endeavor to acquire all the strength and influence 
to meet that period which they can ; and hence the political and civil 
opposition of these to the restriction which was proposed to be laid on 
Missouri." — H. Niles, The Weekly Register^ Vol. XIX, p. 265. 



TJie Gathering Cloud 299 

attention to plant, cherish, and sustain the principles of liberty 
in the new States that may be formed beyond our ancient 
limits, . . . 

Four days later William Pinkney of Maryland delivered 
a speech of three hours' length in reply to King : 

Sir, it was but the other day that we were forbidden (properly 
forbidden, I am sure, for the prohibition came from you) to 
assume that there existed any intention to impose a prospective 
restraint on the domestic legislation of Missouri, . , . We are 
now, however, permitted to know that it is determined by a 
sort of political surgery to amputate one of the limbs of its 
local sovereignty, and thus mangled and disparaged, and thus 
only, to receive it into the bosom of the Constitution, It is now 
avowed that while Maine is to be ushered into the Union with 
every possible demonstration of studious reverence on our part 
. , , this ill-conditioned upstart of the West, this obscure found- 
ling of the wilderness, that was but yesterday the hunting ground 
of the savage, is to find her way into the American family as 
she can, with a humiliating badge of remediless inferiority 
patched upon her garments, , , . with a brand upon her fore- 
head to tell the story of her territorial vassalage, and to per- 
petuate the memory of her evil propensities, . . . with the iron 
collar of servitude about her neck, instead of the civic crown 
of republican freedom upon her brows, . . . 

I am told that you have the power to establish this odious 
and revolting distinction, and I am referred for the proofs of 
that power to various parts of the Constitution, . , , The clause 
of the Constitution which relates to the admission of new States 
is in these words : '' The Congress may admit new States into 
this Union " &c, and the advocates for restriction maintain that 
the use of the word may imports discretion to admit or reject*, 
and that in this discretion is wrapped up another — that of pre- 
scribing the terms and conditions of admission in case you are 
willing to admit. Cuius est da?'e eius est dispoiiere} , , . 

1 " He who has the power to grant has also the power to make the 
terms of the grant." 



300 Slavery and the West 

I think I may assume that if such a power be anything but 
nominal, it is much more than adequate to the present object ; 
that it is a power of vast expansion, to which human sagacity 
can assign no reasonable limits ; that it is a capacious reservoir 
of authority, from which you may take, in all time to come, as 
occasion may serve, the means of oppression as well as of bene- 
faction. . . . Sir, it is a wilderness of powers, of which fancy, in 
her happiest mood, is unable to perceive the far-distant and 
shadowy boundary. ... By the aid of such a power, skilfully 
employed, you may '' bridge your way " over the Hellespont that 
separates State legislation from that of Congress ; and you may 
do so for pretty much the same purpose with which Xerxes 
once bridged his way across the Hellespont that separates Asia 
from Europe. He did so, in the language of Milton, "the liber- 
ties of Greece to yoke." You may do so for the analogous pur- 
pose of subjugating and reducing the sovereignties of States, as 
your taste or convenience may suggest, and fashioning them to 
your imperial will. . . . 

" New States may be admitted by Congress into this Union." 
What is that Union ? A confederation of States equal in sov- 
ereignty, capable of everything which the Constitution does not 
forbid or authorize Congress to forbid. ... By acceding to it, 
the new State is placed on the same footing with the original 
States. It accedes for the same purpose, that is, protection of 
its unsurrendered sovereignty. If it comes in shorn of its beams 
— crippled and disparaged beyond the original States, it is not 
into the original Union that it comes. For it is a different sort 
of Union. The first Union was inter pai-es; this is a Union be- 
tween disparates^ between giants and a dwarf, between power 
and feebleness, between full proportioned sovereignties and a 
miserable image of power. . . . You cannot make the Union, as 
to the new State, what it is not as to the old ; for then it is not 
this Union that you open for entrance of a new party. . . . 

If I am told that, by the bill relative to Missouri, you do 
not legislate upon a new State, I answer that you do. . . . 
You legislate in the shape of terms and conditions prospec- 
tively; and you so legislate upon it that when it comes into the 
Union it is bound by a contract degrading and diminishing its 



The Gathering Cloud 301 

sovereignty. ... Is the right to hold slaves a right which Massa- 
chusetts enjoys ? If it is, Massachusetts is under this Union 
in a different character from Missouri. The compact of the 
union for it is different from the same compact of union for 
Missouri. ... To admit or not is for you to decide. Admission 
once conceded, it follows as a corollary that you must take the 
new State as an equal companion with its fellows. . . . 



The Abolitionists 

While statesmen v^ere arguing in Congress on the right 73. a report 
of the central government to restrict the spread of slavery, H^ Liberia, 
and abolitionists were clamoring for immediate and uncom- [316] 
pensated emancipation, a practical, but, as it proved, pitiably 
inadequate, attempt was being made to relieve the situation in 
the South by the transportation of free negroes and manu- 
mitted slaves to the colony of Liberia on the western coast 
of Africa. Following a suggestion made as early as 1781 
by Thomas Jefferson, ^ and repeatedly endorsed by state 

1 In his Notes on Virginia (ed. 1787, pp. 228-229), Jefferson out- 
lines some desirable changes in the Constitution of the State, among 
which are the following : " To emancipate all slaves born after passing the 
act . . . and further directing that they should continue with their par- 
ents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to till- 
age, arts, or sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females 
should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they 
should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should 
render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of house- 
hold,- and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic 
animals, &c., to declare them a free and independant people, and to 
extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired 
strength. ... It will probably be asked. Why not retain and incorporate 
the blacks into the State ? . . . Deep rooted prejudices entertained by 
the whites ; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries 
they have sustained ; new provocations ; the real distinctions which 
nature has made ; and many other circumstances, will divide us into 
parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in 
the extermination of the one or the other race." 



302 Slavery mid the West 

legislatures both North and South, the American Coloniza- 
tion Society was formed at Washington, early in 1 8 1 7 ; 
and on March 3, 18 19, President Monroe signed a bill 
which authorized him ''to make such regulations and ar- 
rangements as he may deem expedient for the safe-keeping, 
support, and removal beyond the limits of the United 
States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color 
as may be delivered and brought within their jurisdiction ;i 
and to appoint a proper person or persons residing on the 
coast of Africa as agent or agents for receiving the negroes. 
..." An appropriation of $100,000 was made for carry- 
ing out the act of Congress. With the aid of the Coloni- 
zation Society, the ship Elizabeth was chartered and a 
company of eighty-six negroes from various states embarked 
for Africa in the brave attempt to turn the tide of negro 
migration, which for two hundred years had flowed to the 
shores of the western world. The Elizabeth sailed from 
New York harbor on the 6th of February, 1820, five days 
before John Quincy Adams '' went up to the Capitol and 
heard Mr. King" on the Missouri question. After two dis- 
couraging years of danger and disease, which read like the 
early history of Jamestown or Plymouth, the little colony 
was established. As a political experiment of self-govern- 
ment among a small population of picked negroes the 



1 This refers to " recaptured Africans," or negroes confiscated by 
the government for being illegally landed at Southern ports. The act 
of 1807 had imposed fines of $20,000 for equipping a slave vessel, $5000 
for transporting negroes to the United States to be sold as slaves, and 
$800 for purchasing any such negro as a slave. Still many slaves were 
imported, and often sold under conditions making it profitable for the 
owner to have landed them and paid the fine. The student will gain 
some idea of why the Southerner was willing to support almost any 
scheme for the removal of the free negroes, by reading the exciting 
story of Denmark Vesey in the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VII, pp. 728-744. 



The Gathering Cloud 303 

Republic of Liberia has considerable interest ; but its influ- 
ence on the slavery problem or the race question in the 
South has been imperceptible. Dr. Richard Randall, agent 
of the Society, submitted the following report : 

Monrovia,^ Dec. 28, 1828 
To the Board of Managers of the Aj?ierican Coloiiization 
Society^ \Vashington City. 

Gentlemen : 

... I am much pleased with the climate, location, fertility, 
and population of Liberia. The climate is at this season most 
delightful. It is not very warm during the day, and at night it 
is cool enough to sleep with comfort under a blanket. Though 
this is considered the sickly season, we have but little disease, 
and none of an alarming character. ... I consider the town of 
Monrovia quite as healthy as any of our southern cities. . . . 

The location of Monrovia is the most delightful that can be 
imagined. Since the woods have been cleared away on the south 
side of the peninsula, our town is in full view from the ocean, 
and has really a most imposing appearance. . . . Whatever be 
the final success of our colonizing operations, nothing but some 
most unfortunate disaster can prevent this becoming one of the 
most important commercial cities on the African coast. . . . Most 
of the settlers have good houses, and all of them have flourishing 
plantations of rice, cassaba, plantains, and potatoes, with many 
other fruits and vegetables. . . . The lands on both sides of 
Stocton Creek are of the very best quality ; being a rich, light 
alluvion, equal in every respect to the best lands on the southern 
rivers of the United States. . . . 

If I had under my direction an armed vessel, with 40 men, 
principally black sailors from the United States, I could pledge 
myself that the slave-trade should not be carried on in the neigh- 
borhood of this Colony. From all I can learn here, I am induced 

1 The names of Liberia (" free state ") and its capital Monrovia (after 
President Monroe) were both suggested by Robert Harper of Maryland, 
an enthusiastic supporter of the Colonization Society, in 1824. After 
the Civil War broke out, the United States recognized the Republic of 
Liberia (1S62). 



304 Slavery and the West 

to believe that the slave-trade is now carried on ... to a greater 
extent than it has been for many years. . . . The slavers are 
generally fitted out in the island of Cuba, or Brazil, and land 
their cargoes, and establish factories [headquarters] for the col- 
lection of slaves, at some convenient spot, whilst the vessels 
cruise off and on with perfect impunity from the English, French, 
and other cruizers, who cannot capture them, unless they have 
the slaves actually on board ; and as soon as the coast is clear, 
and while the wind is fair, they get their slaves on board, and 
being generally fast sailers, they defy all pursuers. ... . 

The Colonists, I find, are much alarmed at the idea of incens- 
ing these people, who are so powerful, lest they should injure 
them by cutting up their commerce on this coast. It will be 
recollected by the Society, that there has been no American 
vessel cruising on this coast for many years. The Ontario stopped 
here a short time last year, and the Shark, which is now here, 
is only authorized to delay for the reception of my despatches 
to the Navy Department. I hope the Board will urge upon the 
Government the necessity of keeping a vessel on this coast. I 
will pledge my medical reputation, that it can be done with but 
little risk from disease, if proper precautions are used. . . . The 
activity of our squadron during the last two or three years has 
driven the pirates entirely from the West Indies, and the Gulph 
of Mexico, and we have every reason to believe, that the same 
set are now engaged on this coast in the double capacity of 
pirates and slavers. . . . 

The trade of this place is now very considerable, and is becom- 
ing greater every day. . . . Besides six or eight smaller decked 
vessels, we now have belonging to the Colony two large schooners, 
the one above 30, the other above 40 tons, employed in the coast- 
ing trade. I have enclosed certified statements of the exports 
from this place during the year 1828, by two of our principal 
commission merchants. I have not yet been able to get state- 
ments from the others, but presume that the whole may be 
estimated at 60 or $70,000. . . . 

Emigrants from the Southern States should arrive at Liberia 
in November, December, or January ; so as to have the whole 
of the dry season to build their houses, clear their lands, and 



TJie Gathering Clotid 305 

plant their crops, by the commencement of the rainy season. 
From the North, they should leave the United States early in 
the summer, so as to have several months of the cool season to 
get accustomed to the climate. Mechanics should bring the im- 
plements of their trades, and those who are to farm should have 
axes, hatchets, hoes, spades, and short strong cutlasses, to cut 
away the bushes. All should have a supply of clothing, for at 
least two years, and a few small, light cooking utensils. No family 
to be sent out without having a good proportion of strong young 
men and women. . . . Mechanics, such as carpenters, masons, 
shoe-makers, and boat-builders, are much in demand. A half- 
dozen of the latter could get constant employment and good 
wages. Men or women who can give instruction in reading and 
writing will be invaluable. ... 

I have the honor to be. 

Gentlemen, respectfully 

Your Ob't Servant, 
Richard Randall, Colonial Agent 

The following extracts are chosen out of a great number 74. The 
of statutes, resolutions, petitions, and controversies which institutSn 
fill the fateful decade opened by the debates on the Missouri [324] 
Compromise, to illustrate how suddenly and seriously the 
South realized the import of the interference of the national 
government with slavery, and recoiled from the touch of 
'' Northern meddlers " (abolitionists, restrictionists, colo- 
nizers) on what she was willing herself to confess was a 
social sore in her body — the "peculiar institution" of 
slavery.^ '' Practically every one in the South," says Profes- 
sor Callender, *' was impressed by the dangers that would 
arise from liberating the slaves and leaving them as a part 
of Southern society. . . . This fact was not sufficient to make 
all Southerners /w- J- /^77'r/j, in the sense that they regarded 

1 The student must bear in mind that the irritation between North 
and South was still further aggravated in the decade 1820-30 by the 
bitter tariff controversy. See above. No. 66, especially p. 261, note. 



3o6 Slavery and the West 

slavery as a good in itself ; . . . but it was quite sufficient 
to make them anti-abolition, and to keep them so for an 

indefinite period." ^ 

{a) 

FROM A MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR J. L. WILSON TO THE 
LEGISLATURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, DECEMBER 1, 1824 

. . . There should be a spirit of concert and of action among 
the slave-holding states, and a determined resistance to any vio- 
lation of their local institutions. The crisis seems to have arrived 
when we are called upon to protect ourselves. The president 
of the United States and his law adviser, so far from resisting 
the efforts of a foreign ministry, appear to be disposed, by an 
argument drawn from the overwhelming powers of the general 
government, to make us the passive instruments of a policy, at 
war, not only with our interests, but destructive also of our 
national existence.^ The evils of slavery have been visited upon 
us by the cupidity of those who are now the champions of uni- 
versal emancipation.^ A firm determination to resist, at the 
threshold, every invasion of our domestic tranquillity, and to 
preserve our sovereignty and independence as a state, is earnestly 
recommended; and if an appeal to the first principles of the right 
of self-government be disregarded, and reason be successfully 
combatted by sophistry and error, there would be more glory in 
forming a rampart with our bodies on the confines of our territory, 
than to be the victims of a successful [slave] rebellion, or the 
slaves of a great consolidated government. 

1 G. S. Callender, vSelections from the Economic History of the United 
States, 1 765-1860, p. 739. 

2 This sentence refers to a controversy over an act passed by South 
Carohna early in 1823, authorizing the seizure and imprisonment of free 
negroes brought into the ports of the state as a part of the crew of any 
foreign vessel. Stratford Canning, the British Minister at Washington, 
protested, and Attorney-General Wirt handed Secretary Adams, his 
opinion that the act of South Carohna, infringing the right of Congress 
to " regulate commerce with foreign nations," was void. The documents 
are in Niles' Register, Vol. XXVII, pp. 261-264. 

^ Referring to the interests of the New England merchants and rum- 
distillers in the slave trade in colonial times. 



The Gatherijig Cloud 307 

(b) 

FROM A MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR TROUP TO THE 
LEGISLATURE OF GEORGIA, MAY 23, 1825 

Since your last meeting, our feelings have been again out- 
raged by officious and impertinent intermeddlings with our 
domestic concerns.^ . . . Soon, very soon, therefore, the United 
States Government, discarding the mask, will openly lend itself 
to a combination of fanatics for the destruction of everything 
valuable in the Southern country ; one movement of the Con- 
gress unresisted by you, and all is lost. Temporize no longer — 
make known your resolution that this subject [slavery] shall 
not be touched by them, but at their peril ; but for its sacred 
guaranty by the Constitution, we never would have become par- 
ties to that instrument. ... If this matter [slavery] be an evil, 
it is our own — if it be a sin, we can implore the forgiveness of 
it — to remove it we ask not even their sympathy or assistance. 
... I entreat you, therefore, most earnestly, now that it is not 
too late, to step forth, and having exhausted the argument, to 
stand by your arms. 

RESOLUTION OF THE LEGISLATURE OF GEORGIA, 
DECEMBER 28, 1827 

. . . Your committee cannot avoid reprobating the cold- 
blooded selfishness, or unthinking zeal, which actuates many of 
our fellow-citizens in other states, to an interference with our 
local concerns and domestic relations, totally unwarranted either 
by humanity or by constitutional right. Such interference is 
becoming every day more determined and more alarming. It 
commenced with a few unthinking zealots, who formed them- 
selves into abolition societies ; was seized upon by more cunning 
and designing men for political purposes ; and is now supported 

1 Referring to a bill proposed in the Senate, February 18, 1825, by 
Rufus King, for the application of funds received from the sale of pub- 
lic lands to the purchase of slaves from their masters and their coloni- 
zation, along with free negroes, in the settlement of Liberia. 



3o8 Slavery and the West 

by more than one of the States. . . . The result of such inter- 
ference, if persevered in, is awful and inevitable. The people 
of Georgia know and feel strongly the advantages of the federal 
Union. As members of that Union they are proud of its great- 
ness — as children born under that Union, they love it with 
filial affection — as parties of that Union, they will ever defend 
it from foes, internal or external ; but they cannot and will not, 
even for the preservation of that Union, permit their rights to 
be assailed — they will not permit their property to be rendered 
worthless — they will not permit their country to be made waste 
and desolate, " by those who come among us under the cloak 
of a time-serving and hypocritical benevolence." . . . How, then, 
is this evil to be remedied ? Only by a firm and determined 
union of the people and the States of the South, declaring 
through their legislative bodies, in a voice which must be heard, 
that they are ready and willing to make any sacrifice rather 
than submit longer to such ruinous interference ; and warning 
their enemies that they are unwittingly preparing a mine, which 
once exploded, will lay our much-loved country in one common 
ruin. Your committee hope that such a calamity is yet far 
distant, and that there is still remaining in the Congress of 
the Union sufficient discretion, intelligence, and patriotism to 
avert it altogether. With that hope, they deem it unnecessary 
now to do more than recommend the adoption of the following 
resolutions : 

Resolved^ by the Se?tate and House of Repixsentaiives of the 
State of Georgia^ in Getieral Assembty 7?iet^ That the Congress of 
the United States have no constitutional power to appropriate moneys 
to aid the American Colonization Society, or for objects to effect 
which that Society was established.^ . . . 

1 Nothing could show more strikingly the progress of the spirit of ap- 
prehension in the South in the decade following the Missouri Compro- 
mise than the comparison of this resolution with the commendation, 
ten years earlier, of the objects of the American Colonization Society, in 
an editorial in the influential Georgia Jotirnal (January i, 1817) : " If the 
Government [of the United States] will find means of conveying out of 
the country such slaves as may be emancipated," it concludes, " and 
would likewise purchase annually a certain number . . . for transporta- 
tion, it is believed our black population would soon become harmless, 



The Gathering Cloud 309 

\d) 

RESOLUTION OF THE LEGISLATURE OF 
SOUTH CAROLINA 

. . . Should Congress claim the power to discuss and take a 
vote upon any question connected with domestic slavery of the 
Southern States, it is not for your committee to prescribe what 
course ought to be adopted to counteract the evil and danger- 
ous tendency of public discussions of this nature. The minds of 
our citizens are already made up that if such discussion apper- 
tain as a matter of right to Congress, it will be neither more nor 
less than the commencement of a system by which the peculiar 
policy of South Carolina, upon which is predicated her resources 
and her prosperity, will be shaken to its very foundation. In the 
opinion of your committee, 'there is nothing in the catalogue of 
human ills which may not be preferred to that state of affairs in 
which the slaves of our state shall be encouraged to look for any 
melioration of their condition to any other body than the Legis- 
lature of South Carolina. Your committee forbear to dwell on 
this subject. It is a subject on which no subject of South Carolina 
needs instruction. One common feeling inspires us all with a firm 
determination not to submit to a species of legislation which 
would light up such fires of intestine commotion in our borders 
as ultimately to consume our country. 

The distinguished French scholar and statesman Alexis 
de Tocqueville, who visited America in 183 1, wrote sym- 
pathetically of the dilemma with which the South believed 
itself to be face to face — namely, the maintenance of 
slavery or the ruin of society. 

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of 
slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races 

if not extinct. To the importance of such an object, the expense will 
bear no comparison ; and a more favorable period than the present for 
its accomplishment can scarcely be expected." — A Documentary His- 
tory of American Industrial Society, Vol. II, ed. U. B. Phillips, p. 158. 



3 1 o Slavery and the West 

in the Southern States. The Negroes may long remain slaves 
without complaining ; but if they are once raised to the level of 
freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all 
their civil rights ; and, as they cannot become the equals of the 
whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies. In the 
North, everything facilitated the emancipation of the slaves ; 
and slavery was abolished without rendering the free Negroes 
formidable, since their number was too small for them ever to 
claim their rights. But. such is not the case in the South. The 
question of slavery was a commercial and manufacturing ques- 
tion for the slave-owners in the North ; for those of the South, 
it is a question of life and death. God forbid that I should seek 
to justify the principle of Negro slavery, as has been done by 
some American writers ! I say only, that all the countries which 
formerly adopted that execrable principle are not equally able 
to abandon it at the present time. 

When I contemplate the condition of the South, I can only 
discover two modes of action for the white inhabitants of those 
States ; viz. either to emancipate the Negroes, and to inter- 
mingle with them, or, remaining isolated from them, to keep 
them in slavery as long as possible. All intermediate measures 
seem to me likely to terminate, and that shortly, in the most 
horrible of civil wars, and perhaps in the extirpation of one or 
the other of the two races. Such is the view which the Amer- 
icans of the South take of the question, and they act consist- 
ently with it. As they are determined not to mingle with the 
Negroes, they refuse to emancipate them. 

Not that the inhabitants of the South regard slavery as neces- 
sary to the wealth of the planter ; on this point many of them 
agree with their Northern countrymen, in freely admitting that 
slavery is prejudicial to their interests ; but they are convinced 
that the removal of this evil would peril their own existence. 
. . . Hence arises a singular contrast ; the more the utility of 
slavery is contested, the more firmly it is established in the laws ; 
and whilst its principle is gradually abolished in the North, that 
self-same principle gives rise to more and more vigorous conse- 
quences in the South. 



The Gathering Cloud 311 

If it be impossible to anticipate a period at which the Ameri- 
cans of the South will mingle their blood with that of the Negroes, 
can they allow their slaves to become free without compromising 
their own security ? And if they are obliged to keep that race 
in bondage in order to save their own families, may they not be 
excused for availing themselves of the means best adapted to 
that end ? The events which are taking place in the Southern 
States appear to me to be at once the most horrible and the 
most natural results of slavery. When I see the order of nature 
overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain 
struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon 
the men of our own time who are the instruments of these 
outrages ; but I reserve my execration for those who, after a 
thousand years of freedom, brought back slavery into the world 
once more. 

Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the South 
to maintain slavery, they will not always succeed. Slavery, now 
confined to a single tract of the civilized earth, attacked by Chris- 
tianity as unjust, and by political economy as prejudicial, and 
now contrasted with democratic liberty and the intelligence of 
our age, cannot survive. By the act of the master, or by the 
will of the slave, it will cease ; and in either case, great calamities 
may be expected to ensue. If liberty be refused to the Negroes 
of the South, they will, in the end, forcibly seize it for themselves ; 
if it be given, they will, erelong, abuse it.-^ 

1 This entire passage shows how futile it is for a historian, even if 
he have the genius of a De Tocqueville, to indulge in prophecy, and 
especially to prophesy in dilemmas. The negro was set at liberty neither 
by the act of the master nor by the will of the slave ; he probably desired 
freedom as little, on the whole, as he has abused it ; and as for the 
fundamental dilemma on which the whole discussion of De Tocqueville 
rests — slavery or amalgamation — the two races have lived side by side 
for half a century without prejudice to the integrity and supremacy of 
the whites. 



CHAPTER XII 

TEXAS 

The " Reoccupation " of Oregon and the 
'' Reannexation " OF Texas 

75. British One of the chief reasons for the negotiation, in April, 

in Texar*^^ ^ ^44' ^Y Calhoun, of the treaty for the annexation of Texas ^ 

1843-1844 ^as the alleged interference of England with that republic, 

[338] especially in the interests of the abolition of slavery. The 

following extracts from a London newspaper of August 19, 

1843, and the correspondence between Calhoun and the 

British minister at Washington, Richard Packenham, show 

the grounds for Southern apprehension : 

Texas. — In the House of Lords, on Friday, the 18*'' August, 
Lord Brougham introduced the subject of Texas and Texan 
slavery in the following manner: 

Lord Brougham said that, seeing his noble friend at the 
head of the Foreign Department^ in his place, he wished to 
obtain some information from him relative to a State of great 
interest at the present time, namely, Texas. That country was 
in a state of independence, de facto, but its independence had 
never been acknowledged by Mexico, the State from which it 
was torn by the events of the revolution. He was aware that 
its independence had been so far acknowledged by this country 
[England] that we had a treaty with it. 

The importance of Texas could not be under [over] rated. 
It was a country of the greatest capabilities, and was in extent 

1 For the fate of the treaty see Muzzey, An American History, p. 339. 

2 Lord Aberdeen, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the 
cabinet of Sir Robert Peel. 

312 



Texas 313 

fully as large as France. It possessed a soil of the finest and 
most fertile character, and it was capable of producing nearly 
all tropical produce, and its climate was of the most healthy 
character. It had access to the Gulf of Mexico through the 
River Mississippi, with which it communicated by means of the 
Red River. . . . He was grieved to learn that not less than one 
fourth of the population, or 25,000 persons, were in a state 
of slavery. This point led him to the foundation of the question 
which he wished to put to his noble friend. There was very litde 
or no slave trade carried on with Texas from Africa, directly; 
but a large number of slaves were constantly being sent over- 
land to that country. Although the larger part of the land in 
Texas was well adapted for white labor, and therefore for free 
cultivation, still the people of that country, by some strange in- 
fatuation, or by some inordinate love of immediate gain, preferred 
slave labor to free labor. As all access to the African slave mar- 
ket was shut out to them, their market for slaves was the United 
States, from whence they obtained a large supply of negro slaves. 
. . . This made him irresistibly anxious for the abolition of slavery 
in Texas : for if it were abolished there, not only would that 
country be cultivated by free and white labor, but it would put 
a stop to the habit of breeding slaves for the Texan market. . . . 
He therefore looked forward most anxiously to the abolition of 
slavery in Texas, as he was convinced that it would ultimately 
end in the abolition of slavery throughout the whole of America. 
He knew that the Texans would do much, as regarded the aboli- 
tion of slavery, if Mexico could be induced to recognize their 
independence. If therefore by our good offices we could get the 
Mexican government to acknowledge the independence of Texas, 
he would suggest a hope that it might terminate in the abolition 
of slavery in Texas, and ultimately the whole of the Southern 
States of America. . . . 

The Earl of Aberdeen, in reply, said that he could state that 
not only had this country acknowledged the independence of 
Texas, but also that we had a treaty of commerce and a treaty 
for the abolition of the slave trade with that power. . . . He was 
unable to say that there was an immediate prospect of obtaining 
the recognition of the independence of Texas on the part of 



314 Slavery and the West 

Mexico but ... an armistice had been established between the 
two powers ; and he hoped that this would lead to the absolute 
acknowledgement of the independence of Texas by Mexico. . . . 
He was sure that he need hardly say that no one was more 
anxious than himself to see the abolition of slavery in Texas ; 
and if he could not produce papers or give further information, 
it did not arise from indifference. . . . He could assure his noble 
friend that, by means of urging the negotiations, as well as by 
every other means in their power. Her Majesty's ministers would 
press this matter. 

Lord Brougham observed that nothing could be more satis- 
factory than the statement of his noble friend, which would be 
received with joy by all who were favorable to the object of the 
anti-slavery societies. 

Somewhat disturbed by this report, and other indications 
of British solicitude for the condition of Texas,^ our minis- 
ter in England, Edward Everett, told Lord Aberdeen that 
'' he must not be surprised at the interest taken in the 
subject by the United States, when he remembered that 
Texas and the United States were border countries, and 
the necessary effect of the abolition in Texas, on slavery 
as existing in the Union." Our State Department was 
less bland. Secretary Upshur opened negotiations in 
October, 1843, with Texas, looking toward a treaty of an- 
nexation, and, on Upshur's death (February, 1844), his 

1 Two months before this interpellation in the House of Lords a 
delegation of Americans (mostly from New England), attending a con- 
vention in London, waited on Lord Aberdeen to propose that the British 
government make a loan, based on the security of the public lands in 
Texas, for the purchase of the slaves in the state. Aberdeen stated to 
Everett that " he gave them no countenance whatever," but yet that 
he "informed them that, by every proper means of influence" he would 
encourage the abolition of slavery, and that he " had recommended the 
Mexican Government to interest itself in the matter." The influence of 
England in Mexico was very strong (see J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, Vol. XI, 
pp. 340,347, 351,355). 



Texas 315 

successor, Calhoun, completed the work. Meanwhile Eng- 
land was protesting her innocence of any plan of aggression 
in Texas. On February 26, 1844, Packenham submitted 
to our Secretary of State the following paper from Lord 
Aberdeen, dated December 26, 1843 : 

Sir : — As much agitation appears to have prevailed of late 
in the United States relative to the designs which Great Britain 
is supposed to entertain with regard to the Republic of Texas, 
Her Majesty's government deem it expedient to take measures 
for stopping at once the misrepresentations which have been 
circulated, and the errors into which the Government of the 
United States seems to have fallen on the subject of the policy 
of Great Britain with respect to Texas. That policy is clear and 
simple, and may be stated in a few words. 

Great Britain has recognized the independence of Texas, and, 
having done so, she is desirous of seeing that independence 
finally and formally established, and generally recognized, espe- 
cially by Mexico. . . . But we have no occult design, either with 
reference to any particular influence which we might seek to 
establish in Mexico, or even with reference to slavery which now 
exists, and which we desire to see abolished in Texas. 

With regard to the latter point, it must be and is well known, 
both to the United States and to the whole world, that Great 
Britain desires, and is constantly exerting herself to procure, 
the general abolition of slavery throughout the world. But 
the means which she has adopted, and will continue to adopt, 
for this humane and virtuous purpose, are open and undis- 
guised. She will do nothing secretly or underhand. She desires 
that her motives may be generally understood, and her acts 
seen by all. 

With regard to Texas, we avow that we wish to see slavery 
abolished there, as elsewhere ; and we should rejoice if the rec- 
ognition of that country by the Mexican Government should be 
accompanied on the part of Texas by an engagement to abolish 
slavery eventually, and under proper conditions, throughout the 
Republic. . . . 



3i6 Slavery and the West 

The British Government, as the United States well know, 
have never sought in any way to stir up disaffection or excite- 
ment of any kind in the slave-holding States of the American 
Union. ... To that wise and just policy we shall continue to 
adhere ; and the Governments of the slave-holding States may 
be assured that, although we shall not desist from those open 
and honest efforts which we have constantly made for procuring 
the abolition of slavery throughout the world, we shall neither 
openly nor secretly resort to any measures which can tend to 
disturb their internal tranquillity, or thereby affect the prosperity 
of the American Union. 

You will communicate this despatch to the United States 

Secretary of State, and, if he should desire it, you will leave a 

copy of it with him. t ^^ ^^-^ 

^^ ^ ^"^' ^^^- Aberdeen 

Calhoun's reply to this frank note of disclaimer was not 
made until the treaty for the annexation of Texas was 
signed and ready to submit to the Senate (April 12). 
Then under date of April 18, 1844, he writes to acknowl- 
edge Aberdeen's communication : 

. . . The undersigned is directed by the President to inform 
the Right Honorable Mr. Packenham, that, while he regards 
with pleasure the disavowal of Lord Aberdeen of any intention 
on the part of Her Majesty's Government " to resort to any 
measures, either openly or secretly, which can tend to disturb 
the internal tranquillity of the slaveholding States, and thereby 
affect the tranquillity of this Union," he at the same time re- 
gards with deep concern the avowal, for the first time made to 
this government, '' that Great Britain desires and is constantly 
exerting herself to procure the general abolition of slavery 
throughout the world." 

So long as Great Britain confined her policy to the abolition 
of slavery in her own possessions and colonies, no other country 
had a right to complain. It belonged to her exclusively to deter- 
mine, according to her own views of policy, whether it should 
be done or not. But when she goes beyond, and avows it as 



Texas 317 

her settled policy, and the object of her constant exertions, to 
abolish it throughout the world, she makes it the duty of all 
other countries, whose safety or prosperity may be endangered 
by her policy, to adopt such measures as they may deem 
necessary for their protection. 

It is with still deeper concern that the President regards the 
avowal of Lord Aberdeen of the desire of Great Britain to see 
slavery abolished in Texas, and, as he infers, is endeavoring 
through her diplomacy, to accomplish it, by making the abolition 
of slavery one of the conditions on which Mexico should ac- 
knowledge her independence. It has confirmed his previous im- 
pressions as to the policy of Great Britain in reference to Texas, 
and made it his duty to examine with much care and solicitude 
what w^ould be its effects on the prosperity and safety of the 
United States, should she succeed in her endeavors. ... It is 
sufficient to say that the consummation of the avowed object 
of her wishes in reference to Texas would be followed by hos- 
tile feelings and relations between that country and the United 
States, which could not fail to place her [Texas] under the influ- 
ence and control of Great Britain. This, from the geographical 
position of Texas, would expose the weakest and most vulner- 
able portion of our frontier to inroads, and place in the power 
of Great Britain the most efficient means of effecting in the 
neighboring States of the Union what she avows to be her desire 
to do in all countries where slavery exists. . . . 

It is well known that Texas has long desired to be annexed 
to this Union ; that her people, at the time of the adoption of 
her Constitution, expressed, by an almost unanimous vote,^ her 
desire to that effect : and that she has never ceased to desire it, 
as the most certain means of promoting her safety and pros- 
perity. The United States have heretofore declined to meet her 
wishes ; but the time has now arrived when they can no longer 
refuse.^ . . . Nor are they in any way responsible for the cir- 
cumstances which have imposed this obligation on them. They 

1 There were but ninety-three votes cast against annexation by the 
people of Texas in 1836. 

2 The student will remember that the treaty of annexation was 
already signed when Calhoun sent this letter. 



318 



Slavery and the West 



76. An abo- 
litionist on 
annexation, 
January 22, 
1845 
[341] 



had no agency in bringing about the state of things which has 
terminated in the separation of Texas from Mexico.^ It was the 
Spanish Government and Mexico herself which invited and 
offered high inducements to our citizens to colonize Texas. . . . 
It is true, the United States, at an early period, recognized the 
independence of Texas ; but in doing so they but acted in con- 
formity with an established principle to recognize the Govern- 
ment de facto. . . . 

J. C. Calhoun 

The presidential campaign of 1844 turned wholly on 
the issue of Texas, the logical candidates in each party 
writing letters on the subject which cost the one (Van 
Buren, Democrat) the nomination, and the other (Henry 
Clay, Whig) the election. ^ When the country seemed to 
indorse the policy of annexation, by the election of Polk 
in November, the free-soilers made a desperate but un- 
availing fight to avert what they considered the greatest 
calamity that had threatened the nation since its birth. 
Joshua Giddings, elected to Congress in 1838 as its first 
abolitionist member, spoke as follows in the House, 
January 22, 1845 : 

. . . The President in his message says, that " the annexation 
of Texas to the United States will give Mexico no just cause of 
offence." ^ We are all conscious that a state of war now exists 



1 Van Buren, in his letter on Texas, April 20, 1S44, says : " Nothing 
is either more true or more extensively known than that Texas was 
wrested from Mexico, and her independence established, through the 
instrumentality of citizens of the United States." Niles^ Register, Vol. 
LXVI, p. 156. 

2 The letters of Clay and Van Buren may be found in AHles^ Register, 
Vol. LXVI, pp. 152-157. 

3 In his annual message of December 3, 1844, President Tyler said : 
" Mexico has no just ground of displeasure against this government 
or people for the negotiation of the treaty [that is, Calhoun's treaty of 
April 12, 1844]. What interest of hers was affected by the treaty? She 
was despoiled of nothing, since Texas was forever lost to her. The 



Texas 319 

between Texas and Mexico. By entering into the proposed 
union with Texas, we shall become obligated to defend her. 
And when the armies of Mexico invade Texas, we must of course 
send our army and navy to repel such invasion. This interfer- 
ence will constitute us the aggressors. We shall thus make the 
war of Texas our war ; and our sons will be liable to march to 
that country to fight the battles of Texas, to shed their blood, 
and leave their bones to whiten upon her plains, in order that 
slavery may continue and the slave-trade flourish.^ . . . 

During the late political campaign, in some of the slave- 
breeding States these objects were eloquently urged. . . . This 
same object of maintaining the slave-trade was avowed in the 
other end of this capitol by a distinguished Senator [Mr. 
M^Duffie, of South Carolina], who, after stating the increase 
of slaves in the Southern States, remarked : 

" Now if we shall annex Texas, it will operate as a safety-valve 
to let off this superabundant slave population from among us." 

And the same doctrine was advanced on this floor by gentle- 
men from the slave States who boldly avowed that " slavery 
must be maintained in Texas, or it must cease to exist in the 
United States." . . . 

I will detain the committee for a moment, by calling their 
attention to the peculiar attitude in which we, as a nation, are 
now placed before the civilized world. England has abolished 
slavery in her dominions. France is already moving upon that 
subject, and Denmark has taken the incipient steps for setting 

independence of Texas was recognized by several of the leading powers 
of the earth. She was free to treat, free to adopt her own Une of poUcy, 
free to take the course she believed was best calculated to secure her 
happiness." — J. D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 
Vol. IV, p. 342. 

1 The aboHtionists maintained that the sole object of the annexation 
of Texas was the extension of the slave area. The fact that many pro- 
slavery men voted against Calhoun's treaty of annexation disproves this 
view. James Russell Lowell in his stirring poem, " The Present Crisis," 
which was inspired by the annexation policy of 1844, expresses the view 

" Slavery, the earth-bom Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood . . . 
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day. 
Gropes in yet miblasted regions for his miserable prey." 



320 Slavery and the West 

her slaves free. So palpable are the turpitude and disgrace of 
holding slaves, that even semi-barbarous nations are, at this day, 
lustrating themselves from its moral contagion. The Bey of 
Tripoli, in his decree prohibiting the slave-trade, which our 
honorable Secretary of State [Calhoun] is so anxious to main- 
tain, declared that he did it " for the honor of man and the 
glory of God." But while the Bey of Tripoli and the Pacha of 
Egypt are extending the enjoyment of civil liberty, this govern- 
ment is openly engaged in endeavoring to extend the institution 
of slavery. . . . 

Our representatives in 1776 declared the right of man to the 
enjoyment of his liberty to be self-evident, while our Executive 
in 1844 declares the progress of human liberty in a neighboring 
government to be highly dangerous to our prosperity. Of all the 
civilized nations of the earth, ours alone now stands as the 
advocate of negro slavery. The spectacle is humiliating. . . . 

Our honorable Secretary of State urges upon Mr. King 
[United States minister at Paris] and the French government 
that the abolition of slavery " has diminished the exports of the 
British West India Islands " ; and he infers that it would have 
the same effect in this country, if our States were to follow their 
example in respect to emancipation. Now, Sir, the argument is 
not legitimate. It places pecuniary profit in the scale against the 
natural rights of man, and gives preponderance to the former. 
Go to the thief who lives and thrives by his midnight larcenies ; 
remonstrate with him ; tell him that the property of his neighbors 
0/ right belongs to them, and that he ought not feloniously to 
take it, — he may turn round, and, in the language of our honor- 
able Secretary, say to you, that were he to adopt your ideas of 
justice, and cease his thefts, " his exports would be diminished." 
. . . His excuse would not mitigate his crimes ; nay, it would 
aggravate his guilt. So with our Secretary's argument. If slavery 
be opposed to the natural rights of men ; if it be a self-evident 
truth that " man is born free," . . . then it is a crime for us to 
rob him of his God-given rights, although it may thereby " in- 
crease our exports." . . . 

General Jackson and others say that it is necessary that we 
should have Texas as a means of national defence. I reply that 



Texas 321 

every addition of Slave territory renders us weaker, and places 
a heavier burden on the free States. This extending slavery at 
the expense of our free States, is what the honorable Secretary 
regards as economy. If Southern gentlemen regard it in that 
light, I may be permitted to assure them that we of the North 
look upon its economical bearings as altogether unfavorable to 
our interests. We are bound by the Constitution to defend the 
Southern States in case of invasion, or of domestic violence. 
That stipulation w^e will perform to the letter ; but there we 
stop — we go no further. We will not take upon ourselves any 
obligation to protect the slaveholders of Texas. . . . 

The pecuniary bearings of slavery were well illustrated in the 
Florida War, which was commenced and prosecuted in order to 
recapture the fugitive slaves who had sought an asylum in that 
territory.^ It was carried on for seven years, at an expenditure 
of forty million dollars, and some hundreds of lives, in order to 
capture and return to their owners some five hundred slaves ; 
making each slave cost the nation about eighty thousand dollars^ 
mostly taken from the pockets of Northern freemen. This is the 
economy of slavery. Sir, I object to placing ourselves in a situ- 
ation to be called upon to catch the runaway slaves of Texas. 
If this be economy, may Heaven save us from its extension, . . . 

Gentlemen here become pathetic upon the sufferings to which 
the people of Texas have been subjected during their war with 
Mexico. They speak in melting terms of the predatory warfare 
heretofore carried on against Texas, and they ask the people of 
our free States to relieve them from Mexican barbarity. Why, 
Sir, there is more human suffering in this city every year by 
reason of the slave-trade, than has been endured by the whole 
people of Texas during their entire revolution of eight years. 
The consumption of human life attendant and consequent upon 
the slave-trade in this district, is greater every year than it has 
been in Texas during any period of their war with Mexico. It 
should be borne in mind that this slave trade is authorized and 
maintained by act of Congress, which the advocates of annexation 

1 This was but one of several causes of the Florida War. See Muzzey, 
An American History, pp. 237-239. 



322 Slavery and the West 

refuse to repeal. . . . Gentlemen on this floor, whose hearts are 
unmoved by all the suffering of the slave population here, and 
by all the blood that is annually shed in this district, become 
eloquent upon the sufferings endured by the people of Texas. 
They are willing to spend the national treasure, and pour out 
American blood to protect the Texans, while they will authorize 
by law all those crimes and outrages and all the violence and 
bloodshed attendant upon the slave-trade in this district. Indeed, 
they are striving to extend and perpetuate those crimes in Texas, 
under the plea of " extending the a?^ea of freedom^ . . . 

The momentous questions of Liberty and Slavery are now 
before the people of this nation. They have been forced upon 
us by the slave-holders of the South. Northern men cannot, will 
not, shrink from the discussion. They have become the great 
absorbing topics in this hall, in most of our State legislatures, 
and by the people of the United States generally. Public indig- 
nation at these attempts to involve us in the crimes and dis- 
grace of slavery, is already awakened. It is rolling forward with 
an irresistible force ; which, ere long, will redeem and purify the 
people of the North from the crimes and the corroding influence 
of that blood-stained institution. The car of universal liberty is 
moving ; it has acquired a momentum that cannot be stopped ; 
and those who throw themselves before it, in order to obstruct 
its progress, will be crushed beneath its resistless power. 

77. Benton's Probably no other claim of our government was ever 

"Fifty-four- based on a weaker foundation, urged with more vociferous 

Forties," pretensions, or abandoned with more complacent haste, 

,^' than the claim of the Democratic platform of 1844 to " the 

whole of Oregon " up to parallel 54° 40'. ^ Thomas H. 



1 The plain facts of the case were these : by the treaty of 18 19 Spain's 
claims to the north on the Pacific coast were limited to 42° ; by treaties 
of 1824 and 1825 Russia's claims to the south on the Pacific coast were 
limited to 54° 40'. The region between 42° and 54° 40' was occupied 
jointly by Great Britain and the United States, first for ten years, by 
treaty of 18 18, then for an indefinite period, by treaty of 1827. The 
latter treaty might be broken after 1828, by either nation's giving the 
other twelve months' notice. Although there were occasional proposals 



Texas 323 

Benton, whom we have already seen urging the occu- 
pation of the Columbia valley in 1825 (see No. 65, p. 258), 
championed the adoption of the forty-ninth parallel as the 
just boundary line as against the claims of the '' Fifty- 
four- Forties," in a two days' speech in the Senate, May 22 
and May 25, 1846. 

Mr. President, The bill before the Senate proposes to 
extend the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the United States 
over all our territories west of the Rocky Mountains, without 
saying what is the extent and what are the limits of this ter- 
ritory. This is wrong, in my opinion. We ought to define the 
limits within which our agents are to do such acts as this 
bill contemplates. . . . My object will be to show, if I can, 
the true extent and nature of our territorial claims beyond 
the Rocky Mountains, with a view to just and wise decisions ; 
and in doing so, I shall endeavor to act upon the great maxim, 
'' Ask nothing but what is right — submit to nothing that is 
wrong." . . . 

It has been assumed for two years, and the assumption has 
been made the cause of all the Oregon excitement in the country, 
that we have a dividing line with Russia, made so by the con- 
vention of 1824, along the parallel of 54° 40', from the sea to 
the Rocky Mountains, /// to which otir title is good. This is a 
great mistake. . . . The documents will prove that, so far as 
54° 40', from the sea to the mountains, was ever proposed 

to end the joint occupation and fix a boundary line (at 49° or 51°) be- 
tween the British and American shares of Oregon (such a proposal 
being made by Benton as early as 1828), still it was not until April 27, 
1846, that a joint resolution of Congress gave President Polk the author- 
ity to notify England of the termination of the treaty of 1827 ; and that 
resolution was passed solely with the view to enforcing our arbitrary 
claim to parallel 54° 40'. The claim of the United States to 54° 40' was 
first asserted by Tyler in his annual message of December 2, 1843 
(Richardson, Messages and Papers, Vol. IV, p. 258), was taken up 
into the Democratic platform of 1844 (Stanwood, History of the Presi- 
dency, p. 215), and was reechoed, in what Lord Russell called " a blus- 
tering announcement," in Polk's Inaugural Address of March 4, 1845 
(Richardson, Messages and Papers, Vol. IV, p. 381). 



324 Slavery a?id the West 

as a ?iortker?i boiindaiy for any power, it was proposed by us 
for the British, and not for ourselves. ... 

Here is a despatch from Mr. Rush, our Minister in London, 
to Mr. Adams, Secretary of State, dated December 19, 1823 : 
" I at once unfolded to him [Mr. Canning, foreign minister in 
Lord Liverpool's cabinet] the proposals of my Government, 
which were : i . That as regarded the country lying between 
the Stony [Rocky] Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, Great 
Britain, the United States, and Russia should jointly enter into 
a convention ... by which the whole of that country westward 
of the Stony Mountains, with all its waters, would be free and 
open to the citizens and subjects of the three Powers ... for 
the term of ten years. 2. That the United States were willing 
to stipulate to make no settlements north of 51°, . . . provided 
Great Britain stipulated to make none south of 51° or north of 
55°, and Russia to make none south of 55°." Here is the 
offer, in most explicit terms in 1823, to make 55° (which was 
in fact 54° 40') the northern boundary of Great Britain. . . . 

Yet that makes no difference in the philosophy of our Fifty- 
four-Forties. . . . Their notion is that we go jam up to 54° 40', 
and the Russians come jam down to the same line, leaving no 
place for the British Lion to put down a paw, although that 
paw should be no bigger than the sole of the dove's foot which 
sought a resting place from Noah's ark. This must seem a 
little strange to British statesmen, who do not grow so fast as 
to leave all knowledge behind them. They remember that Mr. 
Monroe and his Cabinet — the President and the Cabinet who 
acquired the Spanish title [18 19] under which we now propose 
to squeeze them out of the continent — actually offered them 
six [?] degrees of latitude in that very place ; and they will 
certainly want reasons for this so much compression now, 
where we offered them so much expansion then. These reasons 
cannot be given. There is no boundary at 54° 40'; and so far 
as we proposed to make it one, it was for the British, and not 
for ourselves.^ And so ends this redoubtable line, up to which 

1 It is noteworthy that Canning, in rejecting the "tripartite con- 
vention " proposed by Rush, objected not to being confined to 50° at 
the south, but to being confined to 55° at the north. In other words 



Texas 325 

all true patriots were to march ! and marching, fight ! and fight- 
ing, die ! if need be ! singing all the while with Horace — 
Duke et decorum est pi'o pati^id mori 
(Sweet and decent it is to die for one's country). 

And this is the end of that great line ! all gone — vanished — 
evaporated into thin air — and the place where it was not to be 
found. Oh ! mountain that was delivered of a mouse, thy name 
shall henceforth be fifty-four forty ! And thus, Mr. President, 
I trust I have exploded one of the errors into which the public 
mind has been led, and which it is necessary to get rid of before 
we can find the right place for our Oregon boundaries. 

I proceed to another of the same family — the dogma of the 
unity and indivisibility of the Oregon title, and its resulting 
corollary of all or none. It is assumed by the ^^ friends of 
Orego7i " to be all one title, all the way from 42** up to 54° 40' 
— no break in it ; and consequently " all or none " is the only 
logical solution which our claim to it can receive. Well, this 
may be brave and patriotic, but is it wise and true ? And can 
we, with clear consciences, and without regard to consequences, 
pass a law upon that principle, and send our agents there to 
execute it ? These are the questions which present themselves 
to my mind, and in answering which I wish to keep before my 
eyes the first half of the great maxim — ask nothing but what is 
right. I answer, then, that our title to what is called all Oregon 
is not one, but several ; that it consists of parts, and is good for 
part and bad for part ; and that nothing just or wise can be 
determined in relation to it without separating these parts into 
their proper divisions and giving to each division the separate 
consideration and judgment which belongs to it. Thus the title 
to the Columbia River and its valley was complete before the 
claim to Frazer's River and its valley began; and the claim to 
the islands and coasts rests upon a different state of facts, and 
a different principle of national law, from that which applies to 
the Continent. . . . 

Great Britain refused to let us fix her boundary with Russia at 55° 
(54° 40'). We were now claiming (in 1844) that 54° 40' was oiir bound- 
ary with Russia. See Canning's dispatch (Rush to Adams) quoted in 
Congressional Globe, 29th Congress, ist session, p. 852. 



326 Slavery and the West 

The valley of the Columbia is ours ; ours by discovery, by 
settlement, and by the treaty of Utrecht ! And has too often 
been so admitted by Great Britain, to admit of her disputing it 
now. I do not plead our title to that great country. I did that 
twenty years ago, when there were few to repeat or applaud 
what I said [see No. 65, p. 259]. I pass over the ground which 
I trod so long ago, and which has been again so much trodden 
of late, and take up the question at a fresh place — the admis- 
sions of Great Britain ! and show that she is con [ex] eluded by 
her own acts and words from ever setting up any claim to the 
river and valley of the Columbia, or to any part of the territory 
south of the 49th degree. . . . 

Up to that line, if it becomes necessary, I am willing to fight ; 
but before fighting I want to talk — to talk understandingly, 
with a knowledge of the subject. ... It is not new talk with 
me. Twenty-eight years ago, I wrote what I now speak. Eight- 
een years ago, and when I had already been eight years a 
member of this body, I submitted a resolution in relation to 
this Oregon question, which I have seen no reason to retract 
or modify since that time, and which may stand for the text of 
my speech this day. It was in these words. . . . 

" Resolved^ That it is expedient for the government of the 
United States to treat with his Brittanic Majesty, in reference 
to their claims and boundaries, west of the Rocky Mountains, 
upon the basis of a separation of interests, and the establish- 
ment of the 49th degree of north latitude as a permanent bound- 
ary between them, in the shortest possible time." 

It was in the session of 1827-28, and before the ratification of 
the second partnership convention ^ — the one we are now deter- 
mined to get rid of even at the price of war — and with the view 
of preventing the ratification of that convention, that this resolu- 
tion was submitted. It presented my view of the settlement of 
this question, namely, no partnerships, the immediate establish- 
ment of a boundary, and the 49th parallel for that boundary. . . . 

It is the line of all the American statesmen, without exception, 
twenty and forty years ago. It was the line of Mr. Canning in 

1 See p. 322, note. 



Texas 327 

1823. It is the line for the rejection of which by Mr. Packenham, 
without reference to his Government, Sir Robert Peel has lately, 
and publicly, in the face of the world, expressed regret.^ It is 

1 The gist of the intricate Oregon negotiations is as follows : In the 
summer of 1844 (in spite of the ''re-occupation" plank in the Demo- 
cratic platform) Calhoun was corresponding with Packenham to secure 
the settlement of the Oregon boundary at 49^. The English rejected 
the terms, desiring the Columbia valley. Again, in July, 1845, Secretary 
of State Buchanan offered the boundary line of 49°, and again Packenham 
rudely rejected it, "without reference to his government." Buchanan 
then (August 30, 1845) withdrew the offer of 49°. As the Mexican trouble 
deepened, both the United States and England wished to avoid a clash of 
arms in Oregon. Sir Robert Peel, the British prime minister, expressed 
his regret for Packenham's hasty refusal, and several influential English 
newspapers spoke with favor of the line 49°. Finally (June 6, 1846) 
Buchanan received from the British minister a project for a treaty 
dividing Oregon at 49° ; and Polk, after securing a favorable opinion 
on it from the Senate, concluded the bargain. In spite of Polk's " bluster- 
ing announcement" in his inaugural address, claiming the whole of 
Oregon to 54° 40', there are many indications in his Diary (see intro- 
duction to No. 78, p. 328) that he was at heart in favor of compromising 
on the line 49°. First, on October 24, 1845, he submitted to Benton (a 
well-known and determined advocate of 49°) the correspondence be- 
tween Buchanan and Packenham, and told Benton that he had " reluc- 
tantly yielded his assent" to Buchanan to make the offer of July, 1845 
(Diary, Vol. I, p. 69). Second, on December 9 he told Buchanan, who 
was anxious to settle with England on the line of 49°, that if the 
British government made the offer he " would consider what action it 
might be proper to take " ; and that " he did not desire war " (Diary, 
Vol. I, p. 120). Third, on December 27 he secured from his cabinet 
the unanimous opinion that " if Mr. Packenham offered the 49° or a 
proposition equivalent to it," he should refer the offer to the Senate 
(Diary, Vol. I, p. 147). Fourth, on February 24, 1846, he listened to 
the plan of a group of Southern senators to bring forward a resolu- 
tion asking him to compromise the Oregon question, and resented the 
threat of Senator Allen, a fifty-four-forty man, that if he compromised 
on Oregon he would injure his chances for reelection in 1848 (Diary, 
Vol. I, pp. 246, 248). Fifth, on April 9 he promised Benton, who called 
with a British map on which parallel 49° was marked with dotted lines, 
that he would submit to the Senate any proposal from England to re- 
new negotiations (Diary, Vol. I, p. 324). Sixth, finally, on May 3, he 
told Benton — the avowed champion of 49° — that " he would be grati- 
fied " if he would " take the matter in hand and press the Oregon 
jurisdiction bill through the Senate" (Diary, Vol. I, p. 377). 



328 



Slavery and the West 



a line which we have never presented as an ultimatum ; which 
we have often proposed gently, and which the British have as 
often gently shoved aside. . . . But now all this gentle and de- 
lusive work is done with. The joint use is to terminate — events 
advance — and the question must be settled now by reason and 
judgment, or it will soon settle itself by chance and arms. Forty- 
nine is the right line with me ; and acting upon the second half 
of the great maxim: Submit to nothijig tvrong ! I shall submit 
to no invasion or encroachment upon that line. ... It is the 
line of right, which gives to us the Olympic district and its 
invaluable waters, and secures to us the river and valley of the 
Columbia. It is the fighting line of the United States. The 
Union can be rallied on that line ! 



The Mexican War 



78. Leaves 
from Polk's 
"' Diary": 
the Mexican 
War, 1846- 
1848 

[342] 



On August 25, 1845, President Polk had a conversation 
in his cabinet with his Secretary of State, James Buchanan, 
on the Oregon question, "This conversation," says Polk 
in his " Diary," just a year later, *' was of so important a 
character, that I deemed it proper on the same evening to 
reduce the substance of it to writing. ... It was this cir- 
cumstance which first suggested to me the idea, if not the 
necessity, of keeping a journal or diary of events and trans- 
actions which might occur during my Presidency. I resolved 
to do so and accordingly procured a blank book for that 
purpose on the very next day, in which I have every day 
since noted whatever occurred that I deemed of interest." ^ 
The diary, filling twenty-five "blank books," and covering 
the period from August 26, 1845, to June 2, 1849, was 
kept in possession of the Polk family until 1901,2 when it 

1 The Diary of James K. Polk, ed. M. M. Quaife, Vol. II, p. loi. 

2 Mrs. Polk lent the manuscript to the historian George Bancroft, who 
had a typewritten transcript made of it, which has been quite widely 
used, and which, on Bancroft's death, went to the Lenox Library in 



Texas 329 

was purchased by the Chicago Historical Society, by whom 
it was pubhshed, with notes by M. M. Ouaife, in four 
volumes, in 19 10. We select some passages touching 
the Mexican War : 

Friday, 29''' August, 1845 — The President called a special 
meeting of the Cabinet at 12 O'clock, all the members present 
except Mr. Mason. The President brought up for consideration 
our relations with Mexico, and the threatened invasion of Texas 
with [by] that powen He submitted the following propositions 
which were unanimously agreed to as follows, viz., If Mexico 
should declare War or actual hostilities should be commenced by 
that power, orders to be issued to Gen'l Taylor to attack and 
drive her back across the Del Norte [Rio Grande]. . . . Gen'l 
Taylor to be vested with discretionary authority to pursue the 
Mexican army to the West of the Del Norte, and take Matamoras 
or any other Spanish Post West of that River, but not to pene- 
trate any great distance into the interior of Mexican territory. . . . 

Tuesday, 16"' September, 1845. — Despatches were read from 
D"" Parrott, the confidential agent of the U.S. in Mexico, giving 
an account of another threatened Revolution. . . . He gives it 
as his opinion that there will be no declaration of war against 
the U.S. and no invasion of Texas. ... He is also of the opinion 
that the Government is desirous to re-establish Diplomatic rela- 
tions with the U. States, and that a Minister from the U.S. would 
be received. . . . The President, in consultation with the Cabinet, 
agreed that the Hon. John Slidell of New Orleans . . . should be 
tendered the mission. . . . One great object of the mission, as 
stated by the President, would be to adjust a permanent boundary 
between Mexico and the U. States, and that in doing this the 
Minister would be instructed to purchase for a pecuniary con- 
sideration Upper California and New Mexico. He said that a 
better boundary would be the Del Norte [Rio Grande] from its 
mouth to the Passo [El Paso] in latitude about 32° North, and 

New York. The diary is the most detailed record of a presidential ad- 
ministration in our history, exceeding in fullness even the " Memoirs " 
of John Quincy Adams during the years of his presidency. 



330 Slavery and the West 

thence West to the Pacific Ocean.^ . . . He supposed it might 
be had for fifteen or twenty millions, but he was ready to pay 
forty millions for it, if it could not be had for less. In these 
views the Cabinet agreed with the President unanimously. 

Monday, lo'*" November, 1845 — . . . At ten O'clock p.m., 
... I signed the Commission of the Hon. John Slidell as Envoy 
Extraordinary & Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico. . . . 

Tuesday, 13*'' January, 1846 — There was a regular meeting 
of the Cabinet today. . . . Despatches from Mexico which had 
been received last evening were read and considered. Some other 
public matters not important were also considered.^ . . . 

Tuesday, 7* April, 1846 — A despatch was received by last 
night's mail from our consul at Vera Cruz, which renders it 

1 Let the student compare the actual southwestern boundary of the 
United States with this proposal of Polk's. The entry quoted is signifi- 
cant as showing the resolve of the administration to have California and 
New Mexico, even at the expense of $40,000,000, over six months before 
the Mexican War began. 

2 This brief, colorless entry was made on the evening of the day of 
Polk's most fateful move in connection with the Mexican affair. In his 
war message to Congress, May 11, 1846, Polk says, "On the 13th of 
January last, instructions were issued to the General (Taylor) in command 
of these troops to occupy the left bank of the Del Norte" (Richardson, 
Messages and Papers, Vol. IV, p. 440). This occupation in arms of the 
region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, which was in dispute 
between Texas and Mexico, was a cause of war in the eyes of Mexico. 
Polk maintained that the " despatches from Mexico " which rendered 
this move necessary were rumors of Mexican preparations for the in- 
vasion of Texas (see his war message) ; but the Whig opponents of 
armed intervention scouted the idea. Representative Alexander H. 
Stephens said in the House, June 16, 1846 : " My first proposition is that 
the immediate cause of hostilities between our army and the Mexican 
forces was the advance movement from Corpus Christi on the Nueces 

River, to Matamoras on the Rio Grande or Del Norte The President 

had no right, no power, legally, to order the military occupation of the 
disputed territory on the Rio Grande without authority from Congress 
. . . the question of boundary (was) to be settled and adjusted (by the 
resolution for annexing Texas) between this Government and Mexico, 
by 7iegotiation, and not by arms. . . . Congress can alone constitutionally 
draw the sword for any purpose " (Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, 
pp. 304, 316). Stephens dubbed the President, for his specious argu- 
ments, " Polk the Mendacious." 



Texas 331 

probable that Mr. Slidell, our Minister to Mexico will not be re- 
ceived by that Government, & will return to the U. States. The 
despatch was read & I stated that in the event Mr. Slidell was 
not accredited, and returned to the U.S., my opinion was that 
I should make a communication to Congress recommending 
that Legislative measures be adopted, to take the remedies for 
the injuries and wrongs we had suffered into our own hands. . . . 

Tuesday, 28*'' April, 1846 — . . . The Mexican question was 
next discussed, & it was the unanimous opinion of the Cabinet 
that a message should be sent to Congress laying the whole sub- 
ject before them and recommending that measures be adopted 
to take redress into our own hands for the aggravated wrongs 
done to our citizens in their persons and property by Mexico.-^ 
I requested Mr. Buchanan to prepare from the archives of the 
Department of State a succinct history of these wrongs as the 
basis of a message to Congress, at his earliest convenience. . . . 

Sunday, ^i^ May, 1846 — . . . Col. Benton called this eve- 
ning. . . . He expressed a decided aversion to a war with Mexico 
if it could be avoided consistently with the honour of the country. 
I told him we had ample cause of War, but that I was anxious 
to avoid it if it could be done honourably and consistently with 
the interests of our injured citizens. I told him I would delay 
at all events until the arrival of Mr. Slidell, who was expected 
daily, but that I could not permit Congress to adjourn without 
bringing the subject before that body. 

Friday, Z'^ May, 1846 — ... the Hon. John Slidell, late U.S. 
Minister to Mexico, called in company with the Secretary of 
State. . . . Mr. Slidell's opinion was that but one course towards 
Mexico was left to the U.S. and that was to take the redress of 
the wrongs ^nd injuries which we had so long borne from Mexico 
into our own hands, and to act with promptness and energy. 

Saturday, 9*'' May, 1846 — The Cabinet held a regular meet- 
ing today ; all the members present. I brought up the Mexican 
question. . . . The subject was very fully discussed. All agreed 
that if the Mexican forces at Matamoras committed any act of 

1 Four days before this entry the Mexicans had attacked the Ameri- 
cans on the northern bank of the Rio Grande. See entry under May 9. 



332 Slavery and tJie West 

hostility on Gen'l Taylor's forces I should immediately send a 
message to Congress recommending an immediate declaration 
of War. I stated to the Cabinet that up to this time, as they 
knew, we had heard of no open act of aggression by the Mexican 
army, but that the danger was imminent that such acts would be 
committed. ... I then propounded the distinct question to the 
Cabinet and took their opinions individually, whether I should 
make a message to Congress on tuesday [!], and whether in that 
message I should recommend a declaration of War against 
Mexico. All except the Secretary of the Navy [Bancroft] gave 
their advice in the affirmative. Mr. Bancroft dissented, but said 
if any act of hostility should be committed by the Mexican forces 
he was then in favor of immediate war. Mr. Buchanan said he 
would feel better satisfied in his course if the Mexican forces had 
or should commit any act of hostility, but that as matters stood 
we had ample cause of war against Mexico, and he gave his 
assent to the measure. It was agreed that the Message should 
be prepared, and submitted to the Cabinet in their meeting on 
tuesday. . . . The Cabinet adjourned about 2 O 'Clock p.m. . . . 
About 6 O'clock p.m. Gen'l R. Jones, the Adjutant General of 
the army, called and handed to me despatches received from 
General Taylor by the Southern mail which had just arrived, 
giving information that a part of the Mexican army had crossed 
[to] the Del Norte and attacked and killed and captured two 
companies of dragoons of Gen'l Taylor's army, consisting of 
63 officers & men. The despatch also stated that he had on that 
day [26th April] ^ made a requisition on the Governors of Texas 

1 This was two days after the Mexicans' attack which Polk reports 
in his war message to Congress as follows : " The Mexican forces at 
Matamoras assumed a belligerent attitude, and on the 12th of April 
General Ampudia, then in command, notified General Taylor to break 
up his camp within twenty-four hours and to retire beyond the Nueces 
River, and, in the event of his failure to comply with these demands, 
announced that arms, and arms alone, must decide the question. But no 
open act of hostility was committed until the 24th of April. On that day 
General Arista, who had succeeded to the command of the Mexican 
forces, communicated to General Taylor that he considered hostilities 
commenced, and should prosecute them." A party of dragoons of 63 men 
and officers were on the same day dispatched from the American camp 



Texas 333 

and Louisiana for four regiments each. ... I immediately sum- 
moned the Cabinet to meet at 7^ O'Clock this evening. The 
Cabinet accordingly assembled at that hour, all the members 
present. . . . The Cabinet were unanimously of the opinion, and 
it was so agreed, that a message should be sent to Congress on 
Monday, laying all the information in my possession before them 
and recommending vigorous & prompt measure[s] to enable the 
Executive to prosecute the War. . . . Mr. Senator Houston, 
Hon. Barkley Martin, & several other members of Congress 
called in the course of the evening & were greatly excited, at the 
news brought by the Southern mail from the army. They all 
approved the steps which had been taken by the administration, 
and were all of opinion that war with Mexico should now be 
prosecuted with vigor. The Cabinet adjourned about 10 O'Clock, 
& I commenced my message ; Mr. Bancroft and Mr. Buchanan, 
the latter of whom had prepared a history of our cause of com- 
plaint against Mexico, agreed to assist me in preparing the 
message. . . . 

Monday, ii"" May, 1846 — . . . At 12 O'Clock I sent my 
message to Congress.^ It was a day of great anxiety with me. 
Between 5 & 6 O'Clock p.m. Mr. Slidell, U.S. Minister to Mexico, 
called and informed me that the Ho. Repts. [House of Repre- 
sentatives] had passed a Bill carrying out all the recommendations 
of the message by a vote of 173 ayes to 14 noes, and that the 
Senate had adjourned after a debate, without coming to any 
decision. . . . 

Tuesday 12''' May, 1846 — ... At 7 O'Clock p.m. my Private 
Secretary returned from the Capitol and announced to me that 
the Bill which had passed the Ho. Repts. on yesterday, making 
a formal declaration of War against Mexico, had passed the 
Senate by a vote of 42 ayes to 2 noes, with some immaterial 

up the Rio del Norte, on its left bank, to ascertain whether the Mexican 
troops had crossed, or were preparing to cross the river, " became en- 
tangled with a large body of these troops, and, after a short affair, in 
which some sixteen were killed and wounded, appear to have been sur- 
rounded and compelled to surrender." — Richardson, Messages and 
Papers of the Presidents, Vol. IV, p. 440. 

1 The war message is in Richardson, Messages and Papers, Vol. IV, 
pp. 437-443 ; Polk's proclamation of war, in facsimile, ibid. p. 470. 



334 Slavery and the West 

amendments in its details. He represented to me that the debate 
in the Senate today was most animated and thrilling, and that 
Mr. Calhoun who spoke in opposition to the Bill, but finally did 
not vote, had suffered much in the discussion.^ ... At 8^ 
O'clock P.M. I learned that the House had concurred in the 
amendment of the Senate to the Bill, so that when the Bill is 
signed by the President War will be declared against Mexico. . . . 
Wednesday, 13^'^ May, 1846 — A very large number of visi- 
tors called on me this morning, consisting of Senators, Repre- 
sentatives, citizens & strangers. . . . All approved my acts. 
Many members of Congress, especially from the Western States, 
desired that volunteers under the law should be accepted from 
their respective States. ... I appointed a special meeting of the 
Cabinet at 7|- p.m. Mr. Buchanan read the draft of a despatch 
which he had prepared to our Ministers at London, Paris, & 
other Foreign Courts, announcing the declaration of War against 

Mexico, with a statement of the causes and objects of the War 

Among other things Mr. Buchanan had stated that our object 
was not to dismember Mexico or to make conquests, and that 
the Del Norte was the boundary to which we claimed ; or rather 
that in going to war we did not do so with a view to acquire 
either California or New Mexico or any other portion of the 
Mexican territory. I told Mr. Buchanan that I thought such a 
declaration to Foreign Governments unnecessary and improper ; 
that the causes of the war as set forth in my message to Con- 
gress and the accompanying documents were altogether satis- 
factory. I told him that though we had not gone to war for 
conquest, yet it was clear that in making peace we would, if 
practicable, obtain California and such other portion of the 
Mexican territory as would be sufficient to indemnify our claim- 
ants on Mexico, and to defray the expenses of the war which 
that power by her long continued wrongs and injuries had forced 
us to wage. I told him it was well known that the Mexican 
Government had no other means of indemnifying us. 

1 The Debates in the Senate are reported in the Cong7-essional Globe, 
29th Congress, ist session, pp. 804 ff. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 

The New Territory 

Auri sacra fames ! Never was Vergil's phrase, '' the 79. The 
cursed hunger for gold," better illustrated than in the |°g^ j|^^" 
rush of the '' Forty-niners " to California, and never was [355] 
the hunger so quickly and so amply satisfied. Six weeks' 
digging often yielded nuggets and gold dust to the value 
of ten thousand dollars. The following extracts from the 
diary of the Reverend Walter Colton of Philadelphia, a 
chaplain in the United States navy, who spent the years 
1 846-1 849 as alcalde (judge) of the Californian town of 
Monterey, portray the excitement of the gold days : 

Monday, May 29 [1848]. Our town was startled out of its 
quiet dreams today, by the announcement that gold had been 
discovered on the American Fork. The men wondered and 
talked, and the women too ; but neither believed. . . . 

Monday, June 5. Another report reached us this morning 
from the American Fork. The rumor ran, that several work- 
men while excavating for a mill-race had thrown up little shin- 
ing scales of a yellow ore that proved to be gold ; that an old 
Sonorian, who had spent his life in gold mines, pronounced it 
the genuine thing. Still the public incredulity remained. . . . 

Monday, June 12. A straggler came in today from the Amer- 
ican Fork, bringing a piece of yellow ore weighing an ounce. 
The young dashed the dirt from their eyes, and the old from 
their spectacles. One brought a spy-glass, another an iron ladle ; 
some wanted to melt it, others to hammer it, and a few were 

335 



33^ Slavery and the West 

satisfied with smelling it . . . while a gentleman placed the speci- 
men on the top of his gold-headed cane and held it up, chal- 
lenging the sharpest eyes to detect a difference. But doubts 
still hovered in the minds of the great mass. They could not 
conceive that such a treasure could have lain there so long 
undiscovered. The idea seemed to convict them of stupidity. 
There is nothing of which a man is more tenacious than his 
claims to sagacity. . . . 

Tuesday, June 20. My messenger sent to the mines has re- 
turned with specimens of the gold ; he dismounted in a sea of 
upturned faces. As he drew forth the yellow lumps from his 
pockets and passed them around among the eager crowd, the 
doubts, which had lingered till now, fled. All admitted they were 
gold, except one old man, who still persisted they were some 
Yankee invention, got up to reconcile the people to the change 
of flag. The excitement produced was intense ; and many were 
soon busy in their hasty preparations for a departure to the mines. 
The family who had kept house for me caught the moving in- 
fection. Husband and wife were both packing up ; the black- 
smith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason 
his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, the tapster his 
bottle. All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on 
carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a litter. An Amer- 
ican woman, who had recently established a boarding house here, 
pulled up stakes and was off before her lodgers had even time 
to pay their bills. Debtors ran, of course. I have only a com- 
munity of women left, and a gang of prisoners, with here and 
there a soldier, who will give his captain the slip at the first 
chance.^ I don't blame the fellow a whit ! seven dollars a month, 
while others are making two or three hundred a day ! that is 
too much for human nature to stand. 

1 President Polk in his last annual message, December 5, 1848, said: 
" Nearly the whole of the male population of the country [California] 
have gone to the gold districts. Ships arriving at the coast are deserted 
by their crews and their voyages suspended for want of sailors. Our 
commanding officer there entertains apprehensions that soldiers cannot 
be kept in the public service without a large increase of pay. Deser- 
tions in his command have been frequent." — Richardson, Messages 
and Papers, Vol. IV, p. 636. 



The Compromise of 1 8^0 337 

Tuesday, July 18. Another bag of gold from the mines, and 
another spasm in the community. It was brought down by a 
sailor from Yuba river, and contains 136 ounces. It is the 
most beautiful gold that has appeared in the market ; it looks 
like the yellow scales of the dolphin, passing through his rain- 
bow hues at death. My carpenters at work on the school-house, 
on seeing it, threw down their saws and planes, shouldered their 
picks, and are off for the Yuba. Three seamen ran from the 
Warren, forfeiting their four years' pay ; and a whole platoon 
of soldiers from the fort left only their colors behind.-^ 

Thursday, Aug. 16. Four citizens of Monterey are just in 
from the gold mines on Feather River, where they worked in 
company with three others. They employed about thirty wild 
Indians, who are attached to the rancho owned by one of the 
party. They worked precisely seven weeks and three days, and 
have divided $76,844 — nearly $11,000 to each. . . . 

Tuesday, Aug. 28. The gold mines have upset all social and 
domestic arrangements in Monterey ; the master has become 
his own servant, and the servant his own lord. . . . Out on this 
yellow dust ! it is worse than the cinders which buried Pompeii, 
for there, high and low shared the same fate ! 

Monday, Oct. 2. [After a horseback journey of over 150 
miles from Monterey to the gold fields] I went among the gold- 
diggers ; found a half a dozen at the bottom of the ravine, tear- 
ing up the bogs and up to their knees in mud. Beneath these 
bogs lay a bed of clay, sprinkled in spots with gold. . . . Not 
having much relish for the bogs and mud, I procured a light 

1 " San Francisco became almost deserted by man. Stores were 
closed, places of business vacated, houses left tenantless. ... In May 
the Californiaji and in June the Star ceased to be published. Type- 
setters, pressmen, and printer's devil had all gone. The Town Council 
held no sittings. The Church was closed. The Alcalde was nowhere to 
be found, and every ship that came was deserted by her crew almost as 
soon as she dropped anchor. . . . The whole country from San Fran- 
cisco to Los Angeles . . . resounded with the sordid cry of Gold ! Gold ! 
Gold ! while fields were left half tilled, houses half built, and every in- 
dustry save the manufacture of picks and shovels was neglected." — 
J. B. Mc Master, History of the People of the United States, Vol. VII, 
p. 586. 



338 Slavery and the West 

crowbar and went to splitting the slate rocks which project into 
the ravine. I found between the layers, which were not per- 
fectly closed, particles of gold, resembling in shape the small 
and delicate scales of a fish. These were easily scraped from 
the slate by a hunter's knife, and readily separated in the wash- 
bowl from all foreign substances. . . . There are about seventy 
persons at work in this ravine, and all within a few yards of 
each other. They average about one ounce [worth about $20] 
per diem each. They who get less are discontented, and they 
who get more are not satisfied. Every day brings in some fresh 
report of richer discoveries in some quarter not far remote, and 
the diggers are consequently kept in a state of feverish excite- 
ment. . . . Such is human nature ; and a miserable thing it is, 
too, especially when touched with the gold fever. . . . 

Monday, Oct. 16. I encountered this morning in the person 
of a Welshman, a pretty marked specimen of the gold-digger. 
He stood some six feet eight in his shoes, with giant limbs and 
frame. A leather strap fastened his coarse trousers above his 
hips, and confined the flowing bunt of his flannel shirt. A 
broad-rimmed hat sheltered his brawny features, while his un- 
shorn beard and hair flowed in tangled confusion to his waist. 
To his back was lashed a blanket and a bag of provisions ; on 
one shoulder rested a huge crowbar, to which were hung a gold- 
washer and a skillet ; on the other rested a rifle, a spade, a pick, 
from which dangled a cup and a pair of heavy shoes. He recog- 
nized me as the magistrate who had once arrested him for a 
breach of the peace. " Well, Senor Alcalde," said he, " I am 
glad to see you in these diggings. You had some trouble with 
. me in Monterey ; I was on a burster [drunk] ; you did your 
duty, and I respect you for it ; and now let me settle the differ- 
ence between us with a bit of gold : it shall be the first I strike 
under this bog." . . . He struck a layer of clay : '' Here she 
comes," he ejaculated, and turned out a piece of gold that would 
weigh an ounce or more. " There," said he, " Seiior Alcalde, 
accept that; and when you reach home . . . have a bracelet 
made of it for your good lady." He continued to dig around 
the same place, but during the hour I remained with him, found 
no other piece of gold — not a particle. 



The Compromise of 1 8^0 339 

The story of the discovery of the first particles of gold 
by James A. Marshall, a native of New Jersey, who was 
in the employ of a wealthy Swiss-American named Sutter, 
who had lumber mills near the present site of Sacramento 
City, is thus told by Sutter himself : 

I was sitting one afternoon, just after my siesta, engaged 
bye-the-bye in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, 
when I was interrupted by Mr. Marshall — a gentleman with 
whom I had frequent business relations — bursting hurriedly 
into the room. From the unusual agitation in his manner I im- 
agined that something serious had occurred, and, as we involun- 
tarily do in this part of the world, I at once glanced to see if 
my rifle was in its proper place. You must know that the mere 
appearance of Mr. Marshall at that moment in the fort was 
quite enough to surprise me, as he had, but two days before, 
left the place to make some alterations in a mill for sawing pine 
planks, which he had just run up for me, some miles higher up 
the Americanos [American Fork], When he had recovered him- 
self a little, he told me that however great my surprise might 
be at his unexpected reappearance, it would be much greater 
when I heard the intelligence he had come to bring me. " In- 
telligence," he added, " which, if properly profited by, would 
put both of us in possession of unheard-of wealth — millions 
and millions of dollars, in fact." I frankly own, when I heard 
this I thought something had touched Marshall's brain, when 
suddenly all my misgivings were put an end to by his flinging 
on the table a handful of scales of pure virgin gold. I was fairly 
thunderstruck and asked him to explain what all this meant, 
when he went on to say, that according to my instructions, he 
had thrown the mill-wheel out of gear, to let the whole body of 
the water in the dam find a passage through the tail-race, which 
was previously too narrow for the water to run off in sufficient 
quantity. ... By this alteration the narrow channel was con- 
siderably enlarged, and a mass of sand and gravel carried off 
by the force of the torrent. Early in the morning after this took 
place, he — Mr. Marshall — was walking along the left bank of 



340 Slavery and the West 

the stream, when he perceived something which he at first took 
for a piece of opal — a clear, transparent stone, very common 
here — glittering on one of the spots laid bare by the sudden 
crumbling away of the bank. He paid no attention to this ; but 
while he was giving directions to the workmen, having observed 
several similar glittering fragments, his curiosity was so far ex- 
cited, that he stooped down and picked one of them up. " Do 
you know," said Marshall to me, " I positively debated within 
myself two or three times, whether I should take the trouble to 
bend my back to pick up one of the pieces, and had decided on 
not doing so, when, further on, another glittering morsel caught 
my eye — the largest of the pieces now before you. . . ." He 
then gathered some twenty or thirty similar pieces. . . . He 
mounted his horse and rode down to me as fast as it would 
carry him, with the news. ... I eagerly inquired if he had shown 
the gold to the work-people at the mill, and was glad to hear that 
he had not spoken to a single person about it. " We agreed," said 
the captain smiling, '^not to mention the circumstance to anyone, 
and arranged to set off early the next day for the mill. On our 
arrival, just before sun-down, we poked the sand about in various 
places, and before long succeeded in collecting between us more 
than an ounce of gold, mixed up with a good deal of sand. . . . 
On our return to the mill we were astonished by the work-people 
coming up to us in a body, and showing us small flakes of gold. . . . 
Marshall tried to laugh the matter off with them, and to persuade 
them that what they had found was only some shining mineral 
of trifling value ; but one of the Indians, who had worked at the 
gold mine in the neighborhood of La Paz, in Lower California, 
cried out oro! oro! We were disappointed enough, and supposed 
the work-people had been watching our movements, although we 
had taken every precaution against being observed by them." 



The Omnibus Bill 

Probably no other speech ever delivered in the halls of 
Congress has stirred the moral feelings of our country 
more deeply or contributed more effectively to the passage 



The Compromise of 1 8^0 341 

of a great piece of legislation ^ than the famous seventh-of- so. icha- 
March speech of Daniel Webster on the compromise fs°*Ji,^g" "^^^^^ 
measures of 1850. The corridors, galleries, antechambers, glory?")* 
and even the floor of the Senate were packed with a throng 1850 
eager to hear the foremost American orator on the foremost [360J 
issue in American politics, when Webster began : 

Mr. President, — I wish to speak today, not as a Massa- 
chusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and 
a member of the Senate of the United States. . . . The im- 
prisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North, and the 
stormy South combine to throw the whole sea into commotion, 
to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest 
depths. I do not affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as hold- 
ing or as fit to hold the helm in this combat with the political 
elements, but I have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform 
it with fidelity, not without a sense of existing dangers, but not 
without hope. I have a part to act, not for my own security and 
safety, for I am looking out for no fragment upon which to float 
away from the wreck, if wreck there must be, but for the good 
of the whole and the preservation of all. ... I speak today for 
the preservation of the Union. " Hear me for my cause. . . ." ^ 

1 " Henry Clay had thrown himself into the breach [with his com- 
promise measures] but he was powerless without some efficient aid from 
the North. The leading Southern Whigs, such as Magnum and Badger 
and Dawson, rallied upon Mr. Webster, seized upon him, stuck to him, 
and finally brought him up to the mark. His speech on the seventh of 
March gave a new impulse to the compromise movement, and the whole 
country felt that the danger was substantially past." — N'ew York Herald^ 
April 13, 1852. 

2 Webster realized that his plea for the compromise would cause him 
unpopularity. In the dedication of his speech to the people of Massachu- 
setts he wrote : His ego gratiora dictii alia esse scio; sed me vera pro gratis 
loqui, etsi meum ingeniicm non moneret, necessitas cogit. Vellem eqtiidem 
vobis placere ; sed multo nialo vos salvos esse, qiialicumque erga me animo 
futuri estis [" I am aware that sentiments different from these would 
please you better ; but the crisis compels me to prefer truth to com- 
plaisance, and thereto wins the consent of my whole nature. I confess 
that I should prefer to please you ; but much more do I desire to see 
you saved, let it cost me what it will in your good opinion "]. 



342 Slavery and the West 

Now as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be 
excluded from those territories by a law even superior to that 
which admits and sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of 
nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the 
earth. That law settles forever, with a strength beyond all terms 
of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California or 
New Mexico. . . . They are composed of vast ridges of moun- 
tains, of great height, with broken ridges and deep valleys. The 
sides of these mountains are entirely barren ; their tops capped 
by perennial snow. . . . There are some narrow strips of tilla- 
ble land on the borders of the rivers ; but the rivers themselves 
dry up before the midsummer is gone. All that the people can 
do in that region is to raise some little articles, some little wheat 
for their toi'tillas [flour cakes], and that by irrigation. And who 
expects to see a hundred black men cultivating tobacco, corn, 
cotton, rice, or anything else, on lands in New Mexico, made 
fertile only by irrigation ? 

I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact . . . that both Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they 
are settled at all, which, I believe, in regard to New Mexico, will 
be but partially for a great length of time ; free by the arrange- 
ment of things ordained by the Power above us. . . . And I will 
say further, that if a resolution or bill were now before us to pro- 
vide a territorial government for New Mexico, 1 would not vote 
to put any prohibition into it whatever ... I would not take 
pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to reenact 
the will of God. I would put in no Wilmot Proviso for the mere 
purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would put into it no evidence 
of the votes of a superior [stronger] power, exercised for no pur- 
pose but to wound the pride, whether a just and rational pride, 
or an irrational pride, of the citizens of the Southern States. . . . 

Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wher- 
ever there is a foot of land to be prevented from becoming 
slave territory, I am ready to assert the principle of the exclusion 
of slavery. I am pledged to it from the year 1837 ; I have been 
pledged to it again and again ^ ; and I will perform those pledges ; 

1 For Webster's position in 1837 see Muzzey, An American History, 
p. 337. In a speech in the Senate, August 12, 1848, on the exclusion of 



TJie Compromise of 1 8^0 343 

but I will not do a thing unnecessarily that wounds the feelings 
of others, or that does discredit to my own understanding. . . . 
Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is 
found to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between 
the North and South. There are lists of grievances produced by 
each ; and those grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds 
of one portion of the country from the other, exasperate the feel- 
ings, and subdue the sense of fraternal affection, patriotic love, 
and mutual regard. ... I hear with distress and anguish the 
word '' secession " ; especially when it falls from the lips of those 
who are patriotic, and known to the country and known all 
over the world for their political services. Secession ! Peaceable 
secession ! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see 
that miracle ! The dismemberment of this vast country without 
convulsion ! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep 
without ruffling the surface ! . . . Sir, he who sees these States 
now revolving in harmony around a common center, and expects 
to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may 
look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their 
spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, 
without causing the wreck of the universe. . . . No, Sir ! No, 
Sir ! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the 
Union ; but. Sir, I see as plainly as the sun in heaven what that 
disruption itself must produce ; I see that it must produce war, 
and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character. 
. . . No, Sir ! There will be no secession ! Gentlemen are not 
serious when they talk of secession. 

slavery from the territories, Webster said : " . . . The prevailing motives 
with the North for agreeing to the recognition [by the Constitution] of 
slavery in the Southern States . . . rested upon the supposition that no 
acquisition of territory would be made to form new States on the south- 
ern frontier of this country, either by cession or conquest. ... I have 
said that I shall consent to no extension of the area of slavery upon this 
continent, nor to any increase of slave representation in the other House 
of Congress. I have now stated my reasons for my conduct and my 
vote. We of the North have already gone, in this respect, far beyond 
all that any Southern man could have expected, or did expect, at the 
time of the adoption of the Constitution." -^ Writings and Speeches of 
Daniel Webster, National Edition, Vol. X, pp. 27, 43- 



344 Slavery and the West 

Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher 
trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this 
Constitution and the harmony and peace of all who are destined 
to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest 
and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly 
believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitu- 
tion for ages to come. We have a great, popular, constitutional 
government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by 
the affections of the whole people. No monarchical throne presses 
these States together, no iron chain of military power encircles 
them ; they live and stand under a government popular in its 
form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of 
equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever. In all 
its history it has been beneficent ; it has trodden down no man's 
liberty ; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty 
and patriotism ; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, 
courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, 
the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. 
This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole 
continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and 
the other shore. We realize on a mighty scale the beautiful de- 
scription of the ornamental border of the buckler of Achilles : — 

Now, the broad shield complete, the artist crowned 
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round ; 
In living silver seemed the waves to roll. 
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole. 

In spite of his magnificent eloquence Webster could 
not commend his compromise policy to his Massachusetts 
constituency. A member of the legislature called him "a 
recreant son of Massachusetts, who misrepresented her in 
the senate." Theodore Parker compared him to Benedict 
Arnold, and declared later, in a sermon, that " not a hun- 
dred prominent men in all New England acceded to the 
speech." A mass meeting in Faneuil Hall, " the cradle of 
Liberty," passed resolutions of censure on the speech. And 



The Compromise of 1 8^0 345 

John Greenleaf Whittier, the aboUtionist poet, following the 
example of the stern Hebrew prophets, baptized Webster 
with the significant name Ichabod ('' where is the glory?"). 

So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn 

Which once he wore ! 
The glory from his grey hairs gone 

Forevermore ! 

Revile him not — the Tempter hath 

A snare for all ; 
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath 

Befit his fall ! 

Oh ! dumb be passion's stormy rage, 

When he who might 
Have lighted up and led his age 

Falls back in night. 

Scorn ! Would the angels laugh, to mark 

A bright soul driven. 
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark. 

From hope and heaven ! 

Let not the land once proud of him 

Insult him now, 
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 

Dishonored brow. 

But let its humbled sons, instead, 

From sea to lake, 
A long lament, as for the dead, 

In sadness make. 

Of all we loved and honored, naught 

Save power remains — 
A fallen angel's pride of thought, 

Still strong in chains. 



346 Slavery and the West 

All else is gone ; from those great eyes 

The soul has fled : 
When faith is lost, when honor dies, 

The man is dead ! 

Then, pay the reverence of old days 

To his dead fame ; 
Walk backward, with averted gaze, 

And hide the shame ! 



The Four Years' Truce 

81. The se- When Daniel Webster exclaimed: ''No, Sir! There 
menrof"i8^o' ^'^ ^^ ^^ secession ! Gentlemen are not serious when 
[364] they talk of secession " he was indulging in the extra va- 
: gant optimism of the orator. On the very day before he 

delivered his speech, the legislature of the state of Mis- 
sissippi sent out the following long-premeditated call for 
a Southern convention to be held at Nashville, Tennessee, 
to consider the feasibility of remaining longer in the Union. ^ 

We have arrived at a period in the political existence of our 
country, when the fears of the patriot and philanthropist may 
well be excited, lest the noblest fabric of constitutional govern- 
ment on earth may, ere long, be laid in ruins by the element of 
discord, engendered by an unholy lust for power, and the fell 
spirit of fanaticism [abolitionists] acting upon the minds of our 
bretheren of the non-slave-holding States. . . . The fact can no 
longer be disguised, that our bretheren of the free States, so- 
called, disregarding the compromises of the Constitution — com- 
promises without which it would never have received the sanction 

1 Daniel Webster knew of the projected convention, and in the 
same seventh-of-March speech said : " Sir, I hear that there is to be a con- 
vention held at Nashville " ; and gave solemn warning to " any persons 
who [shall] meet at Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures 
for the overthrow of this Union, over the bones of Andrew Jackson! " 
— Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, Vol. X, p. 95. 



TJie Compromise of 1 8^0 347 

of the slave-holding States, are determined to pursue towards 
those States a course of policy, and to adopt a system of legis- 
lation by Congress, destructive of their best rights and most 
cherished domestic institutions. In vain have the citizens of the 
Slave States appealed to their bretheren of the free States in a 
spirit of brotherly love and devotion to that Constitution framed 
by our fathers and cemented by their blood. . . . The spirit of 
forbearance and concession, which has been for more than thirty 
years manifested and acted upon by the slave-holding States, 
has but strengthened the determination of their Northern breth- 
eren, to fasten upon them a system of legislation in regard to 
their peculiar domestic institutions . . . fatal in its effects. . . . 

Slavery as it exists in the Southern States ... is not a moral 
or political evil, but an element of prosperity and happiness both 
to the master and slave. 

Abolish slavery, and you convert the fair and blooming fields 
of the South into barren heaths ; their high-souled and chivalrous 
proprietors into abject dependents — and the now happy and 
contented slaves into squalid and degraded objects of misery 
and wretchedness ! 

The Southern States have remonstrated and forborne, until 
forbearance is no longer a virtue. The time has arrived when, 
if they hope to preserve their existence as equal members of 
the Confederacy, . . . they must prepare to act — to act with 
resolution, firmness, and unity of purpose, trusting to the right- 
eousness of their cause, and the protection of the Almighty 
Ruler of the destinies of nations, who ever looks benignently 
upon the exertions of those who contend for the prerogatives 
of freemen ; therefore, be it 

Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, 

That they cordially approve of the action of the Southern State 
Convention held at the city of Jackson [Mississippi] on the first 
Monday of October, 1849, ^'^^ adopt the following resolutions 
of said body. . . . 

[Then follow thirteen resolutions protesting against any at- 
tempt to abolish slaver}^ in the District of Columbia or to exclude 
it from the land ceded by Mexico in 1848 ; and declaring their 



34^ Slavery a7id the West 

purpose " to stand by their Sister States of the South in what- 
ever course of action may be determined."] 

This movement for the vigorous assertion of Southern 
rights did not originate in Mississippi. On the meeting 
of Congress immediately after the election of Taylor 
(December, 1848), a caucus of sixty-nine Southern repre- 
sentatives and senators met and issued an address to their 
states urging the solid resistance of the South to any at- 
tempt of the administration to force the Wilmot Proviso 
on the new territory. John C. Calhoun, the author of the 
address, was the leader of this movement for a Southern 
party, transcending the old dividing lines of Whig and 
Democrat. The following extracts are from Calhoun's 
correspondence : 

{a) 

TO C. S. TARPLEY OF MISSISSIPPI, JULY 9, 1849 

Dear Sir : 

I am greatly obliged to you for a copy of the proceeds of 
your meeting. I have read it with a great deal of pleasure. 
You ask me for my opinion as to the course which should be 
adopted by the State Convention in October next. I have de- 
layed answering your letter until this time, that I might more 
fully notice the developments at the North before I gave it. 
They are more and more adverse to us every day. There has 
not been a single occurrence since the rising [adjournment] of 
Congress, which does not indicate on the part of the North 
a fixed determination to push the abolition question to the 
last extreme. 

In my opinion there is but one thing that holds out the 
promise of saving both ourselves and the Union, and that is 
a Southern Convention ; and that, if much longer delayed, 
cannot. It ought to have been held this fall, and ought not 
to be delayed beyond another year. All our movements ought 
to look to that result. For that purpose every Southern State 



The Compromise of l8§0 349 

ought to be organized with a central committee, and one in 
each county. Ours [South Carolina] is already. It is indispen- 
sable to produce concert and prompt action. In the mean time, 
firm and resolute resolutions ought to be adopted by yours, and 
such meetings as may take place before the assembling of the 
Legislatures in the fall. They, when they meet, ought to take 
up the subject in the most solemn and impressive manner. 

The great object of a Southern Convention should be to put 
forth, in a solemn manner, the subject of our grievances, in an 
address to the other States, and to admonish them, in a solemn 
manner, as to the consequences which must follow, if they 
should not be redressed, and to take measures preparatory to 
it, in case they should not be. The call should be addressed to 
all those who are desirous to save the Union and our institutions, 
and who, in the alternative, should it be forced upon us, of sub- 
mission or dissolving the partnership, would prefer the latter. 

No State could better take the lead in this great f^>;;servative 
movement than yours. It is destined to be the greatest of suf- 
ferers if the Abolitionists should succeed ; and I am not certain 
but by the time your convention meets, or at furthest your 
Legislature, the time will have come to make the call. 
With great respect, I am etc. 

John C. Calhoun 

TO JAMES H. HAMMOND,! FEBRUARY 14, 1849- 

, . „ DECEMBER 7, 1849 

My dear Sir : 

... I enclosed you a copy of our Address, which I hope you 
have received, and that it meets your approbation. I trust it 
will do something to Unite the South, and to prepare our people 
to meet and repel effectually and forever the aggressions of the 
North. . . . Now is the time to vindicate ou*- rights. We ought 
rather than to yield an inch, take any alternative, even if it 
should be disunion, and I trust that such will be the deter- 
mination of the South. 

1 Governor of South Carolina 1842-1844 and United States senator 
1857-1860; an ardent advocate of negro slavery as the "mud-sill" on 
which the edifice of civilization rested. 



350 Slavery and the West 

My dear Sir : 

I would regard the failure of the Convention, called by Mis- 
sissippi, to meet, from the want of endorsement by the other 
Southern States to be a great if not fatal misfortune.^ It would 
be difficult to make another effort to rally, and the North would 
consider it as conclusive evidence of our division or indifference 
to our fate. The moment is critical. Events may now be con- 
trolled ; but it will be difficult, if not impossible to control their 
course hereafter. This is destined to be no ordinary session.^ 
We shall need the backing of our constituents : and the most 
effectual we can have would be the endorsement by the other 
Southern States of the Mississippi Call. . . . 

FROM JAMES H. HAMMOND, MARCH 5, 1850 

My dear Sir : 

I am greatly rejoiced to hear of your improved health and 
by the Teleg7'aph that you were in the senate day before yester- 
day. ... If I may judge of your views by the three or four 
sentences which the Telegraph devotes to your speech on Mon- 
day,^ I should regard your retirement at this moment as a 
peculiar calamity to the South. ... I have no sort of faith with 
any Constitutional Compacts with the North. She never has 

1 Nine Southern states heeded the Mississippi call, and sent one hun- 
dred and seventy-five delegates to Nashville in June, 1850, who published 
a strong set of resolutions and adjourned till the end of the session of 
Congress, meanwhile inviting all the Southern states to complete their 
delegations. But when the second session met (November, 1850), Presi- 
dent Taylor was dead, the danger of the Northern Whigs forcing the 
Wilmot Proviso through was over, the compromise measures had 
passed Congress, and the Southern Whigs were already at work en- 
couraging Union sentiment in the South on the basis of the com- 
promise. Only seventy members attended the Nashville meeting, where 
they affirmed the right of a state to secede from the Union, and called 
for a general congress of Southern states. 

2 The 31st Congress, which met in December, 1849. See Muzzey, 
An American History, p. 358. 

3 Calhoun's famous fourth-of- March speech on the Compromise of 
1850. See Muzzey, An American History, p. 360. 



The Compromise of 1 8^0 351 

regarded them and never will. On mere Legislative Compro- 
mises I look with horror. They are the apples of Hippomenes 
cast behind him in the race. Our only safety is in equality of 
Power. We must divide the territory so as forever to retain 
that equality in the Senate at least, and in doing so we should 
count Delaware with the North. She is no Southern or Slave 
State, I would infinitely prefer disunion to anything the least 
short of this — and I would rather have it I believe anyhow 
for fear of future Clays, Bentons, Houstons and Bells. If the 
North will not consent to this [division of territory] I think we 
should not have another word to say, but kick them out of the 
Capitol and set it on fire. We must act now and decisively. We 
will be in a clear minority when California comes in, and in 
twenty or thirty years there will be ten more free States West 
of the Mississippi and ten more North of the St. LawTence and 
the Lakes. England would gladly surrender Canada to us now, 
if she had a decent pretext that would serve her pride. Long be- 
fore the North gets this vast accession of strength she will ride 
over us rough shod, proclaim freedom or something equivalent 
to it to our Slaves, and reduce us to the condition of Hayti. . . . 
Do write me as fully as you can. I think the Atlantic and 
Gulf States are by an immense majority ready for anything, 
and less patient than their leaders. Six months has produced 
an immense change and it is going on rapidly. If the leaders 
will only lead., neither they nor we have anything to fear. 

Yours Sincerely, 

J. H. Hammond 

The six months following Hammond's letter saw 
another " immense change " in the South. The tide of 
disunion sentiment, which was at its full in the early 
summer of 1850, began to recede. The death of Presi- 
dent Taylor in July and the passage of the compromise 
measures in September gave the Union men of the South 
a basis on which to make a final appeal for harmony. 
Although Governor Quitman of Mississippi and Governor 
Seabrook of South Carolina were still in favor of a policy 



352 Slavery and the West 

of defiance and separation/ the other states of the South 
accepted the compromise. Georgia led the way with her 
great trio of Unionist congressmen — Toombs, Cobb, and 
Stephens — and the "Georgia Platform" adopted by a 
vote of 237 to 19, in December, 1850, was quite generally 
indorsed by the slaveholding states. 

... To the end, therefore that the position of this State may 
be clearly apprehended by her confederates of the South and 
of the North, and that she may be blameless of all future 
consequences, 

Be it 7'esolved by the people of Georgia i?i Convention assembled, 

First: That we hold the American Union secondary in im- 
portance only to the rights and principles which it was designed 
to perpetuate. . . . 

Secondly : That if the thirteen original parties to the contract 
bordering on the Atlantic, in the narrow belt, while their separate 
interests were in embryo, their peculiar tendencies scarcely devel- 
oped, their revolutionary trials and triumphs still green in memory, 
found Union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of 
this day may well yield somewhat, in the conflict of opinion and 
policy, to preserve that Union which has extended the sway of 
republican government over a vast wilderness, to another ocean, 
and proportionally advanced civilization and national greatness. 

Thirdly : That in this spirit, the State of Georgia has maturely 
considered the action of Congress embracing a series of meas- 
ures [the compromise acts of September, 1850] . . . and while 
she does not wholly approve, will abide by it as a permanent 
adjustment of this sectional controversy. . . . 

1 South Carolina went far. Her governor (vSeabrook), in his message 
of November 26. asserted the right of secession, and declared that the 
time had arrived " to resume the exercise of the powers of self- 
protection." The legislature recommended the convocation of a meet- 
ing of delegates of the Southern states, with full powers to act on the 
question of secession, provided for a state convention to assemble at 
the governor's call for the same purpose, and appropriated $350,000 for 
the defense of the state (December 20, 1850. Compare the events of 
December 20, i860). 



The Coinproinise of iSjO 353 

Fifthly : That it is the deliberate opinion of this Convention 
that upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law by 
the proper authorities depends the preservation of our much 
loved Union. 

The following remarkably impudent document, advising 82. The 
the virtual robbery of Cuba from Spain, is a joint report j^gg^^ q^^^_ 
sent to our State Department by three United States minis- ^^^ ^^' ^^54 
ters at European courts. The ministers had been appointed ]?'^^\ 
by President Pierce, with an eye to facilitating the acquisi- 
tion of Cuba and so extending the slave area of the South. ^ 
They were : for England, James Buchanan, who as Secre- 
tary of State under Polk had offered Spain $100,000,000 
for the island ; for Spain, Pierre Soule, who believed in 
simply taking Cuba by force ; and, for France, John Y. 
Mason, whose only very determined political conviction 
was hatred for the abolitionists. Our Secretary of State, 
Marcy, disowned the preposterous language of the Mani- 
festo, and instructed its chief author, Soule, that there 
should be no attempt to coerce Spain to part with Cuba. 
Soule's resignation closed the incident. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, Oct. 18, 1854 

oIR \ 

The undersigned, in compliance with the wish expressed by 
the President in several confidential despatches you have ad- 
dressed to us, respectively, to that effect, have met in confer- 
ence, first at Ostend in Belgium, on the cf", io"\ and 1 1*^ instant, 
and then at Aix-la-Chapelle in Prussia, on the days next follow- 
ing, up to the date hereof. 

There has been a full and unreserved interchange of views 
and sentiments between us, which we are most happy to inform 

1 Buchanan had written to President-elect Pierce in December, 1852 : 
" Should you desire to acquire Cuba, the choice of suitable ministers 
to Spain, Naples, England, and France will be very important." — 
Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, Vol. II, p. 75. 



354 Slaveiy a7td the West 

you has resulted in a cordial coincidence of opinion on the grave 
and important subjects committed to our consideration. 

We have arrived at the conclusion, and are thoroughly con- 
vinced, that an immediate and earnest effort ought to be made 
by the government of the United States to purchase Cuba from 
Spain at any price for which it can be obtained, not exceeding 
the sum of $ . ... 

The natural and main outlet to the products of this entire 
population [the Mississippi valley], the highway of their direct 
intercourse with the Atlantic and Pacific States, can never be 
secure, but must ever be endangered whilst Cuba is a depend- 
ency of a distant power in whose possession it has proved to 
be a source of constant annoyance and embarrassment to their 
interests. 

Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose, nor possess reli- 
able security, as long as Cuba is not embraced within its bound- 
aries. Its immediate acquisition by our government is of 
paramount importance, and we cannot doubt but that it is a 
consummation devoutly wished for by its inhabitants. 

The intercourse which its proximity to our coasts begets and 
encourages between them and the citizens of the United States, 
has, in the progress of time, so united their interests and blended 
their fortunes that they look now upon each other as if they 
were one people and had but one destiny. Considerations exist 
which render delay in the acquisition of this island exceedingly 
dangerous to the United States. 

The system of immigration and labor lately organized within 
its limits, and the tyranny and oppression which characterize its 
immediate rulers, threaten an insurrection at every moment 
which may result in direful consequences to the American 
people. Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, 
and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm. ^ . . . 

1 The fear of the emancipation of the negroes in Cuba and their 
rising in force against the whites to make a " black repubhc," as in 
Haiti, was ever before the minds of the slaveholder in the Southern 
states. Soule in a speech in January, 1853, had quoted Lord Palmerston, 
the British foreign secretary, that " if the negro population of Cuba 
were rendered free, that fact would create a most powerful element of 



TJie Compromise of 1 8^0 35$ 

Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity [of the 
offer for Cuba] for developing her resources, and removing her 
financial embarrassments, it may never return again. 

Cuba in its palmiest days, never yielded her exchequer, after 
deducting the expenses of its government, a clear annual income 
of more than a million and a half of dollars. . . . Under no 
probable circumstances can Cuba ever yield to Spain one per- 
cent, on the large amount which the United States are willing 
to pay for its acquisition. But Spain is in imminent danger of 
losing Cuba, without remuneration. . . . 

We know that the President is justly inflexible in his deter- 
mination to execute the neutrality laws ; but should the Cubans 
themselves rise in revolt against the oppression which they suffer, 
no human power could prevent citizens of the United States 
and liberal minded men of other countries from rushing to their 
assistance. Besides, the present is an age of adventure, in which 
daring and restless spirits abound in every portion of the world. 

It is not improbable, then, that Cuba may be wrested from 
Spain by a successful revolution ; and in that event she will lose 
both the island and the price which we are now willing to pay 
for it ; a price far beyond what was ever paid by one people to 
another for any province. . . . 

But if Spain, dead to the voice of her own interest, and actu- 
ated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse 
to sell Cuba to the United States, then the question will arise, 
What ought to be the course of the American government 
under such circumstances ? Self-preservation is the first law 
of nature with States as well as with individuals. . . . The 
United States have never acquired a foot of territory except 
by fair purchase or, as in the case of Texas, upon the free and 
voluntary application of the people of that independent State, 
who desired to blend their destinies with our own. . . . 

Our past history forbids that we should acquire the island of 
Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justified by the great 
law of self-preservation. . . . 

resistance to any scheme for annexing Cuba to the United States, 
where slavery exists." — Congressional Globe, 32d Congress, 2d session, 
Vol. XXVII, p. 118. 



35^ Slavery and the West 

After we shall have offered Spain a price for Cuba far be- 
yond its present value, and this shall have been refused, it will 
then be time to consider the question. Does Cuba, in the pos- 
session of Spain, seriously endanger our internal peace and the 
existence of our cherished Union ? 

Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then, by 
every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting 
it from Spain, if we possess the power; and this upon the very 
same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down 
the burning house of his neighbor if there were no other means 
of preventing the flames from destroying his own home. . . . 

We should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gal- 
lant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, 
should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second 
San Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, 
and suffer the flames to extend to our neighboring shores, 
seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of 
our Union. . . . 

Our recommendations, now submitted, are dictated by the 
firm belief that the cession of Cuba to the United States, with 
stipulations as beneficial to Spain as those suggested, is the 
only effective mode of settling all past differences and of secur- 
ing the two countries against future collisions. 

We have already witnessed the happy result for both coun- 
tries which followed a similar arrangement in regard to Florida. 
Yours, very respectfully 

James Buchanan 



J. Y. Mason 
Pierre Soule 



Hon. W". Marcy, Secretary of State 



PART VI. THE CRISIS OF DISUNION 



I 



PART VI. THE CRISIS OF 
DISUNION 

CHAPTER XIV 

APPROACHING THE CRISIS 

The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the 
Formation of the Republican Party 

The cession of vast regions to the United States by 83. The 
Mexico in 1848 gave rise to a most absorbing problem in ?"^^uatter 
our poHtical history, namely, the competency of Congress sovereignty," 

, , 11-1 December 24, 

or the general government to control slavery m the ter- 1847 
ritories. Between the extreme free-soil doctrine of the [380] 
Wilmot Proviso ^ and the extreme Southern rights doc- 
trine of the Calhoun-Rhett-Davis school,^ the compromise 
principle of " squatter sovereignty " was reached. It was 

1 Moved by Wilmot of Pennsylvania, in the House, August 8, 1846, 
as an amendment to a bill to appropriate $2,000,000 to the President's 
use in purchasing a peace from Mexico : " Provided, That, as an ex- 
press and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from 
the Republic of Mexico . . . neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
shall ever exist in any part of said territory." — Congressional Globe^ 
29th Congress, ist session, p. 1217. 

2 Briefly this doctrine was that the territories were the property of 
the states and not of the general government. The states had not re- 
linquished their co-sovereignty over the territories by allowing Con- 
gress to make " needful rules and regulations " for them (Constitution, 
Art. IV, Sect. Ill, par. 2) ; and in taking their slaves into the terri- 
tories the Southerners were but " exercising a common right over a com- 
mon property." Otherwise sovereignty over all the territories would 
be vested in only 2i part of the states, namely, the majority in Congress. 
See, for Calhoun's resolutions and Rhett's speech. Congressional Globe, 
29th Congress, 2d session, p. 455, and Appendix, pp. 244-246. 

359 



360 The Crisis of Distmion 

the principle applied in 1850 to Utah and New Mexico, 
and extended by Douglas in 1854 to Kansas and Nebraska; 
it was the issue on which the Republican party was formed 
in 1854 ; it was the topic of the great Lincoln-Douglas 
debates of 1858, and of innumerable other controversies 
in the press and the pulpit, in the halls of legislation, and 
in the market place, " until debate was silenced by the more 
eloquent bombardment of Sumter." The following letter 
from Lewis Cass, a prominent aspirant for presidential 
honors in 1848, to Mr. A. O. P. Nicholson of Tennes- 
see, is the first clear announcement of the doctrine of 
squatter sovereignty. ^ 

The theory of our government presupposes that its various 
members have reserved to themselves the regulation of all sub- 
jects relating to what may be termed their internal police. They 
are sovereign within their boundaries, except in those cases 
where they have surrendered to the General Government a por- 
tion of their rights, in order to give effect to the objects of the 
Union. [See the Preamble to the Constitution.] . . . 

Local institutions, if I may so speak, whether they have refer- 
ence to slavery or to any other relations, domestic or private, 
are left to local authority. . . . Congress has no right to say 
there shall be slavery in New York, or that there shall be no 
slavery in Georgia ; nor is there any human power, but the 
people of those States respectively, which can change the rela- 
tion existing therein ; and they can say, if they will, " We will 
have slavery in the former, and we will abolish it in the latter." 

In various respects, the Territories differ from the States. 
Some of their rights are inchoate, and they do not possess the 
peculiar attributes of sovereignty. Their relation to the General 

1 The principle had already been recognized in the joint resolution 
for the admission of Texas, March i, 1845: ''And such states as may 
be formed out of that portion of said territory [Texas] lying south of 
36° 30' north latitude . . . shall be admitted to the Union with or with- 
out slavery, as the people of each State asking admission may desire." 
— United States Statutes at Large, Vol. V, p. 798. 



Appro achhig the Crisis 361 

Government is very imperfectly defined by the Constitution; 
and it will be found, upon examination, that in that instrument 
the only grant of power concerning them is conveyed in the 
phrase, " Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make 
all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and 
other property belonging to the United States." Certainly this 
phraseology is very loose, if it designed to include in the grant 
the whole power of legislation over persons, as well as things. 
. . . The lives and persons of our citizens, with the vast variety of 
objects connected with them, cannot be controlled by an author- 
ity which is merely called into existence for the purpose of mak- 
ing rules and regulations for the disposition and management of 
property. ... If the relation of master and servant may be 
regulated or annihilated ... so may the relation of husband and 
wife, of parent and child, and of any other condition which our 
institutions and the habits of our society recognize. . . . 

Such, it appears to me, would be the construction put upon 
this provision of the Constitution, were this question now first 
presented for consideration. . . . Certain it is that the principle 
of interference should not be carried beyond the necessary im- 
plication, which produces it. It should be limited to the creation 
of proper governments for new countries, acquired or settled, 
and to the necessary provisions for their eventual admission to 
the Union ; leaving, in the mean time, to the people inhabiting 
them, to regulate their internal concerns in their own way. They 
are just as capable of doing so as the people of the States ; and 
they can do so, at any rate, as soon as their political independ- 
ence is recognized by their admission into the Union. During 
this temporary condition [as territories], it is hardly expedient 
to call into exercise a doubtful and invidious authority [of pro- 
hibiting slavery] which questions the intelligence of a respecta- 
ble portion of our citizens ... an authority which would give 
Congress a despotic power, uncontrolled by the Constitution, 
over most important sections of our common country. . . . 

When the authors of the ''Georgia platform" concluded 84. Fugitive 
with timid confidence that '' upon the faithful execution of ®^*^^® 

f3851 

the Fugitive Slave Law by the proper authorities " would 



362 The Crisis of Disunio7i 

depend " the preservation of our much-loved Union " (see 
No. 81, p. 353), they put their finger on the critical point 
in the compromise measures. ^ The number of fugitives 
from Southern plantations was inconsiderable,^ but the 
spread of a sentiment of sympathy for them through the 
North, and of a disposition to repeal or evade the law com- 
pelling their return, stirred a spirit of reproachful indigna- 
tion on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line. The temper 
of the South is well reflected in the following report of a 
committee of the legislature of Virginia in 1849 • 

. . . Look at the actual state of things in the sixtieth year of 
the Constitution ! It is simply and undeniably this : That the 
South is wholly without the benefit of that solemn constitutional 
guaranty which was so sacredly pledged to it at the formation 
of this Union. ... No citizen of the South can pass the frontier 
of a non-slaveholding State and there exercise his undoubted 
constitutional right of seizing his fugitive slave, with a view to 
take him before a judicial officer and there prove his right of 
ownership, without imminent danger of being prosecuted crimi- 
nally as a kidnapper, or being sued in a civil action for false 

1 In the very month in which the Georgia platform was adopted 
(December, 1850), Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, before a large 
audience at Rochester, New York, said : " Most of those who are pres- 
ent will have observed that leading men in this country have been 
putting forth their skill to secure quiet to the nation. A system of 
measures to promote this object was adopted a few months ago in Con- 
gress. The result of those measures is known. Instead of quiet, they 
have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought us war; and 
so it must ever be. While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of 
3,000,000 innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a 
sound and lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cog- 
nizance of the affairs of men." — Frederick Douglass, Lectures on 
American Slavery (a pamphlet, p. 16, Buffalo, 18 51). 

2 " The number of fugitives who escaped into the free States annu- 
ally did not exceed one thousand. The number of arrests of fugitives, 
of which an account was had, from the passage of the 1850 law to the 
middle of 1856 was only two hundred." — J. F. Rhodes, History of the 
United States from the Compromise of 1850, Vol. II, p. 76. 



Approaching the Crisis 363 

imprisonment — imprisoned himself for want of bail, and sub- 
jected in his defence to an expense exceeding the whole value of 
the property claimed, or finally of being mobbed or being put to 
death in a street fight by insane fanatics or brutal ruffians. In 
short, the condition of things is, that at this day very few of the 
owners of fugitive slaves have the hardihood to pass the frontier 
of a non-slaveholding state and exercise their undoubted, adjudi- 
cated constitutional right of seizing, the fugitive. In such a con- 
juncture as this, the committee would be false to their duty — 
they would be false to their country, if they did not give utter- 
ance to their deliberate conviction, that the continuance of this 
state of things cannot be, and ought not to be much longer 
endured by the South — be the consequences what they may. 

In such a diseased state of opinion as prevails in the non- 
slaveholding states on the subject of Southern slavery, it may 
well be imagined what the character of their local legislation 
must be. Yet it is deemed by the committee their duty to pre- 
sent before the country the actual state of that legislation, that 
the people of this commonwealth and of the entire South may 
see how rapid and complete has been its transition from a fra- 
ternal interest in our welfare to a rank and embittered hostility 
to our institutions, [Then follows a review of the Personal Lib- 
erty Acts passed from 1843 to 1848 by the states of Vermont, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania.] 

But this disgusting and revolting exhibition of faithless and 
unconstitutional legislation must now be brought to a close. It 
may be sufficient to remark that the same embittered feeling 
against the rights of the slaveholder, with more or less of in- 
tensity, now marks, almost without exception, the legislation of 
every non-slaveholding state of this Union. So far therefore as 
our rights depend upon the aid and cooperation of state officers 
and state legislation, we are wholly without remedy or relief. 

Kidnapers of slaves drove a lucrative trade in some 
parts of the South. The following account of the chase 
and capture of a slave stealer is from the Atlanta Daily 
Intelligencer of January 22, 1851 : 



364 The Crisis of Distmion 

Overhauled : Those absconding negroes, accompanied by 
a white man (referred to in this paper of the 2'^ inst.) were over- 
hauled by their owners, Messrs. Calhoun and Storey, after a hot 
and spirited chase through Alabama, Tenn., & Ky. The white 
fellow proved to be a young man named Howard from N. Caro- 
lina, who had been working in our town during some portion 
of the past year at the carpenter's trade. At Decatur, Alabama, 
he sold one of the boys, pocketed the money and provided himself 
with a pass to join him and the other boy at Tuscumbia. Learn- 
ing, however, in the mean time that he was being hotly pursued,^ 
Howard abandoned the boy and made tracks for his own safety 
in the direction of Illinois, through Tenn. & Ky. By the aid of 
the Telegraph, the progress of the villain was cut short off at 
Smithland, Ky., near the mouth of the Cumberland, within a 
few hundred yards of the State of 111. He is now in jail, sub- 
ject to the requisition of the Executive of this State — all done 
too, without the owners of the negroes ever seeing the scoun- 
drel, or being within hundreds of miles of him. We wish the 
young man a speedy retreat within our penitentiary, and plenty 
of good hard work, and hard usage for his pains of endeavoring 
to defraud honest men out of their property. The owners 
returned to this place, with their negroes on Tuesday last. 

One slave of exceptional intellectual powers, in whose 
veins ran white blood, escaped from his master at Balti- 
more, in September, 1838. This man was Frederick 

1 How hot the pursuit of an absconding negro might be is illustrated 
by the following advertisement from a Louisiana newspaper, November 
26, 1847 '• " The subscriber, living on Carroway Lake, on Hoe's Bayou, 
in Carrol Parish, sixteen miles on the road leading from Bayou Mason 
to Lake Providence, is ready with a pack of dogs to hunt runaway 
negroes at any time. These dogs are well trained and known through- 
out the Parish. Letters addressed to me at Providence will secure im- 
mediate attention. My terms are five dollars per day for hunting the 
trails, whether the negro is caught or not. When a twelve hours' trail 
is shown, and the negro not taken, no charge is made. For taking 
a negro $25.00, and no charge made for hunting. James H. Hall." 
— Quoted by McMaster, History of the People of the United States, 
Vol. VII, p. 242, note. 



Approaching the Crisis 365 

Douglass (18 1 7-1 895), abolitionist, orator, newspaper edi- 
tor, Republican politician, European traveler, and lifelong 
champion of the rights of the colored man in all parts of 
the world. Douglass gives the following account of his 
escape from slavery: 

My means of escape were provided for me by the very men 
who were making laws to hold and bind me more securely in 
slavery. It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require 
of the free colored people to have what were called " free 
papers." This instrument they were required to renew very 
often, and by charging a fee for this writing, considerable sums 
from time to time were collected by the State. In these papers 
the name, age, color, height and form of the free man were de- 
scribed, together with any scars or other marks upon his person 
which could assist in his identification. This device of slavehold- 
ing ingenuity, like other devices of wickedness, in some measure 
defeated itself — since more than one man could be found to 
answer the same general description. Hence many slaves could 
escape by personating the owner of one set of papers ; and this 
was often done as follows : A slave nearly or sufficiently an- 
swering the description set forth in the papers, would borrow 
or hire them until he could by their means escape to a free state, 
and then, by mail or otherwise, return them to the owner. The 
operation was a hazardous one for the lender as well as the bor- 
rower. A failure on the part of the fugitive to send back the 
papers would imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the 
papers in the possession of the wrong man would imperil both 
the fugitive and his friend. It was therefore an act of supreme 
trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to put in jeopardy 
his own liberty that another might be free. . . . 

I had one friend — a sailor — who owned a sailor's protec- 
tion . . . describing his person and certifying to the fact that he 
was a free American sailor. . . . The protection did not, when 
in my hands, describe its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it 
called for a man much darker than myself, and close examina- 
tion of it would have caused my arrest at the start. In order to 



366 TJie Crisis of Distmioii 

avoid this fatal scrutiny on the part of the railroad official, I had 
arranged with Isaac Rolls, a hackman, to bring my baggage to 
the train just on the moment of starting, and jumped upon the 
car myself when the train was already in motion. Had I gone 
into the station and offered ^o purchase a ticket, I should have been 
instantly and carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested. . . . 

In my clothing I was rigged out in sailor style. I had on a 
red shirt and a tarpaulin hat and black cravat, tied in sailor 
fashion, carelessly and loosely about my neck. My knowledge 
of ships and sailors' talk came much to my assistance, for I knew 
a ship from stem to stem and from keelson to cross-trees, and 
could talk sailor like an " old salt." On sped the train, and I 
was well on the way to Havre de Grace before the conductor 
came into the negro car to collect tickets and examine the papers 
of his black passengers. My whole future depended upon the 
decision of this conductor. ... "I suppose you have your free 
papers ? " [he observed]. To which I answered : " No, sir ; I 
never carry my free papers to sea with me." '' But you have 
something to show that you are a free man, have you not ? " 
" Yes, sir," I answered ; " I have a paper with the American 
eagle on it, that will carry me round the world." With this I 
drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection, as 
before described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him, 
and he took my fare and went on about his business. . . . Though 
much relieved, I realized that I was still in great danger : I was 
still in Maryland and subject to arrest at any moment. I saw 
on the train several persons who would have known me in any 
other clothes, and I feared they might recognize me, even in my 
sailor's " rig," and report me to the conductor. . . . 

Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt, 
perhaps, quite as miserable as such a criminal. . . . Minutes were 
hours, and hours were days during this part of my flight. After 
Maryland I was to pass through Delaware — another slave State, 

where slave catchers generally awaited their prey The border 

lines between slavery and freedom were the dangerous ones for 
the fugitives. The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds 
on his trail in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or 
noisily than mine did from the time I left Baltimore till I reached 



Approaching the Crisis 367 

Philadelphia. ... A German blacksmith, whom I knew very well, 
was on the train with me, and looked at me very intently [on 
the ferry over the Susquehanna River] . I really believe he knew 
me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate, he saw me 
escaping and held his peace. 

The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded 
most, was Wilmington. Here we left the train, and took the 
steamboat for Philadelphia. In making the change I again ap- 
prehended arrest, but no one disturbed me, and I was soon on 
the broad and beautiful Delaware, speeding away to the Quaker 
City. On reaching Philadelphia in the afternoon I inquired of 
a colored man how I could get on to New York. He directed 
me to the Willow St. depot, and thither I went, taking the train 
that night. I reached New York Tuesday morning, having com- 
pleted the journey in less than twenty-four hours. Such is briefly 
the manner of my escape from slavery — and the end of my 
experience as a slave. Other chapters will tell the story of my 
life as a freeman. 

*' Bleeding Kansas " 

On the afternoon of December 4, 1855, the newsboys 85. The 
on Broadway were hawking an " extra " of the Neiv York Legislature' 
Herald, on the " Great War in Kansas." of Kansas, 



CALL FROM THE GOVERNOR FOR UNITED 

STATES TROOPS 

By Telegraph 

Accounts from Kansas state that Governor Shannon has 
telegraphed to the President concerning the present condition 
of affairs in that Territory. He says that one thousand men 
have arrived in Lawrence, and rescued a prisoner from the 
sheriff of Douglas County, and burned some houses and other 
property. He asks the President to order out the troops at Fort 
Leavenworth to aid in the execution of the laws. 

Douglas Brewerton, an old companion of Kit Carson on 
his Rocky Mountain travels, bought a copy of the '' extra," 



1855 

[3891 



368 The Crisis of Dis7mion 

read the dispatch, and hastened to the Herald office to 
offer his services as special correspondent from Kansas. 
Arrived on the scene, Brewerton secured the following 
account of the origin of the disorder from James Chris- 
tian, a moderate proslavery man from Kentucky, who was 
filling a county clerkship in the territory. 

The true cause of these Kansas troubles was not an arrest 
by the Sheriff under the Territorial law ; it had its origin far back 
in the halls of Congress, when the Nebraska and Kansas bills 
were passed, when the Missouri Compromise was declared null 
and void, and ultra men boasted in our Legislative Assemblies, 
that if they could not defeat these bills in one way they would 
in another, and returned to their homes to organize '' Emigrant 
Aid Societies " and ''Kansas Leagues," with the avowed intention 
of defeating the Kansas Bill, by Abolitionizing the Territory. 
This was theyfrj-/ wrong, and it aroused the indignation of the 
" Fire Eaters " of Western Missouri. . . . 

When the first election in Kansas [for delegate] came on 
[November, 1854], these gentlemen called out the pro-slavery 
forces and marched their men into our Territory to cast their votes 
for Whitfield. This was done to counteract the influence of the 
Boston Aid Societies and Kansas Leagues, already alluded to. 
This might have been all well or ill enough, if the evil had stopped 
here, as the Free Soilers, when they came in, ruled it with a high 
hand ; in many instances treating the Pro-Slavery and Western 
settlers with the grossest injustice, by driving them from their 
improvements, or cutting their timber before their eyes, at the 
same time bidding them defiance, as they [the Yankees] " had 
the power and meant to take the country." This it was that 
prompted the Pro-Slavery and Western men to seek protection 
from their friends in Missouri, who, to do them justice, were as 
zealous in giving assistance as they were prompt to ask it. Things 
were in this condition when the spring elections came on for 
members of the Council and House of Representatives. This 
took place on the 30*'' of March, 1855, and the people of Missouri, 
delighted with their success at the fall election, came in with 



Approaching the Crisis 369 

renewed vigor to the Kansas ballot-boxes, bringing with them 
an ample supply of their favorite institutions — bowie-hiives, 
pistols, and whisky — to the great terror of the Yankees. . . . 

Upon the morning of the 30^'' of March, a clear sunshiny day, 
the voters of Lawrence District began assembling about the door 
of the polls, which was held in a small log shanty, situated upon 
the outskirts of the city of Lawrence. In the meantime, the in- 
vading army of Missouri voters, who had arrived the day before, 
to the number of some eight or nine hundred men, were encamped 
in the vicinity of the polls. At 9 a.m., the hour appointed for 
the opening of the polls, the Missourians, well armed, walked 
down to the one-horse shanty, before alluded to. Their leader 
Young then took the oath required by the judges of election. 
To avoid the rush, and prevent imnecessary crowding, the Mis- 
sourians then formed a line some hundred yards in length on 
either side of the shanty window, in which the voters were to 
deposit their ballots. Through this alley-way the voters passed 
in ; but as the living stream was for some time continuous, and 
a retreat through the lane impossible, it became necessary to 
adopt some plan by which to get rid of the voter after he had 
been polled. This was no easy matter ; but, as a happy expe- 
dient, it was at length determined to hoist each polled man upon 
the roof of the shanty, where he seized hold of the shingles and 
thus assisted himself over until he had gained the other side, from 
whence a second jump brought him in safety to the ground, leav- 
ing him at liberty to supply the place of some friend who had 
not yet voted. Thus the vote polled in the Lawrence District was 
upward of one thousand, of which two hundred and twenty-five 
were Free Soil and the balance Pro-Slavery. . . . 

This Legislature — styled Bogus, by the Free-Soil party — 
met, in accordance with the Governor's proclamation, at Pawnee, 
a paper city on the extreme verge of civilization, with no house 
to shelter them from the inclemency of the weather. I was 
present, and shall never forget the first meeting of the Kansas 
Legislature ; it was a most novel sight to see grave councilmen 
and brilliant orators of the House of Representatives cooking 
their food by the side of a log, or sleeping on a buffalo-robe in 
the open air, with the broad canopy of heaven for a covering. 



370 The Crisis of Disunion 

During the meeting of the Legislature at Pawnee, we had 
several severe showers, and it was amusing enough to behold 
these Romuluses of Kansas, as they scampered, with their beds 
upon their backs — like an Irish pedlar — to some new houses 
which boasted neither window nor door, and kept out but illy 
the pelting storm. There were but two things in abundance at 
Pawnee — rocky mounds and highly rectified whisky. 

Being fairly drowned out, the Legislature finally adjourned to 
Shawnee Mission, whereupon the Governor vetoed the Bill : 
this was \k\e, final rupture between the Governor and the Legis- 
lature ; then came the tug of war. Both parties from this mo- 
ment broke out into open hostility. The Governor and his 
Free-Soil friends repudiated the Legislature and its acts, and 
bid defiance to both ; they spoke of it as the Missouri Bogus 
Legislation. The Legislature, on their part, were not slow to 
retaliate ; they racked their ingenuity to insult and aggravate 
the Free-Soil party, and if possible widen the breach between 
the two contending y<7r/'/6';/j-, for I can scarcely dignify with the 
name of party those who condescend to such a petty warfare as 
exists between the Kansas agitators. The Legislature, in the 
first place, memorialized President Pierce to remove Governor 
Reeder, which was done. . . . They then attempted to padlock 
the mouths of the Free-Soilers by preventing their expressing 
an opinion as to the right of individuals to hold slaves in Kansas 
Territory. Their next move was to appoint officers to put this 
padlock on, or in other words, to execute their laws, and as 
most of the members lived in Missouri, it was no very singular 
thing that they had friends to reward in that State, who were 
patriotic enough to " move into Kansas " if they could get an 
office there ; this several of them did, and accordingly came into 
the Territory with their commissions in their pockets. In due 
time the Legislature closed this, their labor of love, and returned 
to the bosom of their families, with their well earned pay in 
their pockets, with which to improve their farms in Jackson and 
other counties of Missouri. . . . 

Colonel John Scott, city attorney of St. Joseph, Missouri, 
was one of the ''invaders" of Kansas. He voted at the 



Approaching the Ci'isis 371 

elections of 1854 and 1855. In his testimony before the 
House committee of three, which was sent to Kansas in 
1856, he said : 

I was present at the election of March 30, 1855 in Burr Oak 
precinct in the 14*^ district, in this Territory. I saw many Mis- 
sourians there. There had been a good deal of talk about the 
settlement of Kansas, in the interference of eastern people in 
the settlement of that territory, since the passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill. It was but a short time after the passage of that 
act that we learned through the papers about the forming of a 
society in the east for the purpose of promoting the settlement 
of Kansas Territory, with the view of making it a free State. . . . 

[The Missourians] were excited upon that subject, and have 
been ever since. This rumor and excitement extended all over 
the State, and more particularly in the borders. . . . The people 
of the south have always thought they have always been inter- 
fered with by the north, and the people of Missouri considered 
this the most open and bold movement the northern and eastern 
societies ever made. . . . 

Immediately preceding the election [1855], and even before 
the opening of navigation, we had rumors that hundreds of 
eastern people were in St. Louis, waiting for the navigation of 
the river to be opened, that they might get up to the Territory 
in time for the election, and the truth of these rumors was es- 
tablished by the accounts steamboat officers afterwards brought 
up of the emigrants they had landed at different places in and 
near the Territory, who had no families, and very little property, 
except little oil cloth carpet sacks, . . . 

It was determined by the Missourians that if the eastern 
emigrants were allowed to vote, we would vote also, or we 
would destroy the poll books and break up the elections ; and 
the determination is that eastern people shall not be allowed to 
interfere and control the domestic institutions of Kansas, if the 
Union is dissolved in preventing it, though we are willing that 
all honest, well-meaning settlers shall come and be admitted to 
all the equality of other citizens. . . . The avowed object of mak- 
ing a free State by persons living remote from the Territory, 



3/2 The Crisis of Distmion 

and having no interest in it, and the raising of money and means 
for that purpose, is the obnoxious feature of these emigrant aid 
societies. ... I think it is a new thing for free States to get up 
societies for making free States out of Territories. . . . 

I think it is the general expression, and I know it is the 
ardent hope of every man in Missouri that I have heard express 
himself, that if the north would cease operating by these socie- 
ties, Missouri would also cease to use those she has established. 
All that Missourians asked was that the principles of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act should be carried out, and the actual settlers of 
the Territory allowed to manage their own domestic institutions 
for themselves. 

The press, of course, North and South, abounded in 
violent and defiant comment on the Kansas situation. A 
typical editorial from the New York Tribune of May 14, 
1855, says : 

It is abundantly demonstrated, from what we have published 
on the Kansas election, that a more stupendous fraud was never 
perpetrated since the invention of the ballot-box. The crew 
who will assemble under the title of the Kansas Territorial 
Legislature, by virtue of this outrage, will be a body of men to 
whose acts no more respect will be due, and should no more be 
entitled to the weight of authority, than a Legislature chosen 
by a tribe of wandering Arabs, who should pitch their tents and 
extemporize an election on the prairies of that Territory. . . . 

We are not prepared either to say to what these proceedings 
are likely to lead. They seem, however, pregnant with the seeds 
of great good or evil. They sound in our ears like the distant 
roar of the coming tempest. Events of startling character and 
magnitude may stand in fearful proximity behind that dim and 
shadowy veil which divides the present from the future. There 
is Kansas. Her territory is free soil. It was never stained by 
the tread of a slave. Her plains never echoed to the lash of 
the slave-driver's whip, nor the groans of the enchained bond- 
men. The millions of the free States have thundered out the 
declaration that they never shall. On one side, the slave power 



Approaching the Crisis 373 

has risen in its might and declared its purpose to subjugate that 
territory, and plant slavery there in defiance of the North. . . . 
It has armed its myrmidons, marshalled and sent them forth to 
execute its purposes. . . . The appeal is now made to arms. By 
the sword, they declare, shall Kansas be gained to slavery. . . . 
The first step taken has been to put beneath their heel the real 
residents and occupants of the soil. The next is to depose the 
Governor, and pronounce another in his place. A third is to 
declare war against all who dare oppose their plans. . . . 

On the other [side] stands a little band of the sons of free- 
dom, just now borne down by numbers, but resolute in purpose, 
and ready to do their part in repelling the barbarian invaders. 
The question is whether they are to be seconded by the people 
of the North. Is there a genuine spirit of freedom in the country, 
ready to do something against the atrocious strides of the slave 
power to continental dominion .? Are there those who are will- 
ing to migrate to Kansas to aid in maintaining the freedom of 
Kansas at the cost of such perils as may arise ? Do the northern 
people mean that Kansas shall be free ? If they do, that is 
enough. The force that shall drive out hordes of land pirates 
v/ho have made their descent upon Kansas will not be long in 
forming. Swayed and inspired by the sentiments of freedom, 
they will scatter its enemies like chaff. ... If it be otherwise, 
their degradation is unspeakable, and they are fit only to live 
as the slaves of slaves. 



'' A House Divided against Itself " 

The famous case of Dred Scott, Plaintiff in Error m^. 86. The 
John F. A. Sandford^Ws two hundred and forty pages in creVscott 
the Reports of cases arsoied before the Supreme Court of decision, 

^ ° 1 ^ » March 6, 

the United States. The possibility of reconcilmg the Court s 1857 
elaborate decision with the doctrine of squatter sovereignty [396] 
was the general subject of the great series of debates be- 
tween Lincoln and Douglas for the Illinois senatorship in 
the summer of 1858. A year later Lincoln referring to 



374 ^/^^ Crisis of Disiuiioii 

those debates in a speech at Columbus, Ohio, said : "What 
is that Dred Scott decision ? Judge Douglas labors to show 
that it is one thing, while I think it is altogether different. 
It is a long opinion, but it is all embodied in this short 
statement : The ConstitJitioji of the United States forbids 
Congress to deprive a man of his property, ivithont dne 
process of lazv ; the right of property in slaves is dis- 
tinctly and expressly affi7'ined in that ConstitiUion ; there- 
fore if Congress shall undertake to say that a mans 
slave is no lojiger his slave, when he crosses a certain 
line iiito a Territory, that is depriving him of his prop- 
erty without due process of law, and is nnconstitntional. 
There is the whole Dred Scott decision." ^ The text of 
the opinion of the Court on this question, as delivered by 
Chief Justice Taney, reads as follows : 

. . . The words '' people of the United States " [Preamble 
to the Constitution] and " citizens " are synonymous terms, and 
mean the same thing. They both describe the political body 
who, according to our Republican institutions, form the sover- 
eignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government 
through their representatives. . . . The question before us is, 
whether the class of persons described in the plea |rtegroes] 
compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members 
of this sovereignty ? We think that they are not, and that they 
are not included, and were not intended to be included, under 
the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim 
none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides 
for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the con- 
trary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and 
inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the domi- 
nant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained sub- 
ject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such 

1 Political Debates between Lincoln and Douglas, Columbus, i860, 
p. 251. 



Approachmg the Crisis 375 

as those who held the power and the Government might choose 
to grant them. . . . 

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in 
relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized 
and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United 
States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every 
European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. 

They had for more than a century before been regarded as 
beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate 
with the white race, either in social or political relations ; and 
so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was 
bound to respect ; and that the /4^gi"o might justly and lawfully 
be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold 
and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, 
whenever a profit could be made by it. . . . 

The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was 
naturally impressed upon the Colonies they founded on this side 
of the Atlantic. And, according, a ^egro of the African race 
was regarded by them as an article of property, and held and 
bought and sold as such in every one of the thirteen Colonies 
which united in the Declaration of Independence and after- 
wards formed the Constitution of the United States. . . . 

The Territory being a part of the United States, the Govern- 
ment and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the 
Constitution, with their respective rights defined and marked 
out ; and the Federal Government can exercise no power over 
his person or property beyond what that instrument confers, 
nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved. . . . And if 
the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master 
in a slave, and makes no distinction between that description of 
property and other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, 
acting under the authority of the United States, whether it be 
legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a 
distinction. . . . 

Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opin- 
ion, ... the right of property in a slave is distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, 



37^ The Crisis of Disiinio7i 

like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guar- 
antied to the citizens of the United States, in every State that 
might desire it, for twenty years. -^ And the Government in 
express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time, if the 
slave escapes from his owner.^ This is done in plain words, too 
plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the 
Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave 
property . . . than property of any other description. 

Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that 
the act of Congress^ which prohibited a citizen from holding 
and owning property of this kind in the Territory of the United 
States north of the line therein mentioned [36° 30'], is not war- 
ranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void ; ^ and that 
neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made 
free by being carried into this territory. Even if they had been 
carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a 
permanent resident. . . . 

But there is another point in the case which depends on State 
power and State law. And it contended, on the part of the 
plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island in 
the State of Illinois independently of his residence in the territory 
of the United States ; and being so made free, he was not again 
reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri. 

Our notice on this part of the case will be very brief : for the 
principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon 
much consideration, in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham, 
reported in 10*^ Howard, 82. In that case, the slaves had been 
taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, 
and afterwards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held 

1 Constitution, Art. I, Sect. IX, par. i. 

2 Constitution, Art. IV, Sect. II, par. 3. 

3 The Missouri Compromise Act of 1820. 

4 This is the first instance in our history of an act of Congress, not 
bearing on the judiciary itself, being declared null and void by the 
Supreme Court. The Constitution nowhere gives the Supreme Court 
this power. In this part of its decision the Court sanctioned the legislative 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act by the terms of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act of 1854. It denied Congress the power of legislating on 
slavery in any territojy of the United States. 



Approaching the Crisis '^'jy 

that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon 
the laws of Kentucky when they were brought back into that 
State, and not of Ohio ; and that this court had no jurisdiction 
to revise the judgment of a State court upon its own laws. . . . 
So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State 
of Illinois by his owner, and was held there as such and brought 
back in that character, his status, as free or slave, depended on 
the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois.^ . . . 

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this Court, 
that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error 
is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used 
in the Constitution ; and that the Circuit Court of the United 
States, for that reason had no jurisdiction in the case, and could 
give no judgment upon it. Its judgment for the defendant must, 
consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the 
suit to be dismissed [that is, left to the Missouri state court] for 
want of jurisdiction. 

1 This part of the decision completed the guaranty of the slaveholder 
by allowing him to travel where he would with his slave property with- 
out thereby impairing his property rights in it. The advance in South- 
ern claims may be seen by comparing this decision with the words of 
Alexander H. Stephens nine years earlier (August 7, 1S48): "If my 
slave escapes and gets into a free State, the Constitution secures me the 
right of pursuing and retaking him [Art. IV, Sect. II, par. 2] ; but if I 
voluntarily take my Slave into a State where slavery by law is pro- 
hibited, I have no right to retake him ; he becomes /?'ee. Xo mati witt qties- 
tio7i this." — Congressional Globe, 30th Congress, ist session, Appendix, 
p. 1 105. 



CHAPTER XV 
SECESSION 

The Election of Abraham Lincoln 

87. The On February 27, i860, Abraham Lincoln, a distin- 

standarT" guished lawyer of Illinois, already widely known for his 
1860-1861 brilliant debates with Judge Douglas, and enthusiastically 
[408] boomed for the presidential nomination by the Repub- 
licans of the West, made his first speech before an Eastern 
audience in the great hall of the Cooper Institute in New 
York City. It was the clearest and most forceful exposi- 
tion of Republican principles made since the foundation 
of the party, and answered the extreme proslavery resolu- 
tions introduced in the Senate by Jefferson Davis, on 
February 2} After showing that the '' Fathers" had no 
idea that the Constitution limited the Federal govern- 
ment in the control of slavery in the Federal territory, 
and warning the South against precipitate action, Lincoln 
concludes : 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable 
that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and 
harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to 
have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing 
through passion and ill temper. Even though the Southern 
people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider 

1 See Muzzey, An American History, pp. 408-409. Horace Greeley 
said of this speech in 1868 : " I do not hesitate to pronounce it the very 
best political address to which I ever listened — and I have heard some 
of Webster's grandest." — Century Magazine, July, 1891, p. 373. 

378 



Secession 379 

their demands, and yield to them, if, in our deliberate view of 
our duty, we possibly can. . . . Let us determine, if we can, 
what will satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally 
surrendered to them ? We know they will not. In all their 
present complaints against us the Territories are scarcely men- 
tioned. Invasions and insurrections are all the rage now.^ Will 
it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with 
invasions and insurrections ? We know it will not. We so know, 
because we know we never had anything to do with invasions 
and insurrections, and yet this total abstaining does not exempt 
us from the charge and the denunciation. 

The question recurs, What will satisfy them ? Simply this : 
we must not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, con- 
vince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experi- 
ence, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them 
from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. 
. . . Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have 
never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what 
will convince them ? This, and this only : cease to call slavery 
wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done 
thoroughly, done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be 
tolerated ; we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator 
Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, sup- 
pressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in 
politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and 
return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull 
down our free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must 
be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery before they 
will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this 
way. Most of them would probably say to us, '' Let us alone, 
do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But 
we do let them alone — have never disturbed them ; so that, 
after all, it is what we say that dissatisfies them. . . . 

1 Referring to John Brown's " raid " of the previous autumn. See 
Muzzey, An American History, pp. 407-408. 



380 The Crisis of Distmion 

I am also aware that they have not yet, in terms, demanded 
the overthrow of our free-State constitutions. . . . [But] demand- 
ing what they do, and for the reason they do, they can volun- 
tarily stop nowhere short of this consummation.^ Holding as 
they do that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they 
cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a 
legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground, save our 
conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, 
acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and 
should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot 
justly object to its nationality — its universality ! if it is wrong, 
they cannot justly insist on its extension — its enlargement. All 
they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right ; 
all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. 
Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise 
fact upon which depends the whole controversy. . . . Can we 
cast our votes with their view and against our own ? In view 
of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this ? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let slavery 
alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising 
from its actual presence in the nation ; but can we, while our 
votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Terri- 
tories, and to overrun us here in the free States ? If our sense 
of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and 
effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical con- 
trivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored, 
contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between 
the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should 

1 In a speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858, accepting the 
nomination for the United States senatorship, Lincoln had expressed 
the idea thus : " ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe 
this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house 
to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest 
the further spread of it ... or its advocates will push it forward till it 
shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as 
well as South." — Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, p. 137. 



Secession 381 

be neither a living man nor a dead man, such a policy of " don't 
care," on a question about which all true men do care, such as 
Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunion ; 
reversing the divine rule, and calling not the sinners but the 
righteous to repentance ; such as invocations to Washington, 
imploring men to unsay what Washington said and to undo 
what Washington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations 
against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to 
the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith 
that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare 
to do our duty as we understand it. 

Between the Cooper Institute speech and the first in- 
augural address (from which the following extract is taken) 
events had moved rapidly. Lincoln had been nominated 
and elected, South Carolina and six of her sister states of 
the South had seceded from the Union, a Confederate 
government had been organized, and the batteries in 
Charleston harbor had fired on the Star of the West 
bearing supplies to Fort Sumter under the American flag. 
Lincoln's magnificent plea for calm deliberation and patient 
hope of harmony came too late. 

Fellow-Citizens of the United States : 

. . . Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the 
Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Adminis- 
tration their property and their peace and personal security are 
to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause 
for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the 
contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspec- 
tion. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who 
now addresses you. I do but quote from one of these speeches 
when I declare that '' I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, 
to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where 
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have 
no inclination to do so." . . . I now reiterate these sentiments. 



382 The Crisis of Disunion 

... I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with 
the Constitution and the laws, can be given will cheerfully be 
given to all the States, when lawfully demanded, for whatever 
cause — as cheerfully to one section as to another. . . . 

I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Con- 
stitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. . . . The Union 
is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by 
the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and con- 
tinued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was 
further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States 
expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by 
the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, 
one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the 
Constitution was ^"^ to form a more perfect Union J^ 

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of 
the States be lawfully possible, then the Union is less perfect 
than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of 
perpetuity. . . . 

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere 
motion can lawfully get out of the Union ; that resolves and ordi- 
nances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within 
any State or States against the authority of the United States are 
insurrectionary or revolutionary according to circumstances. 

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the 
laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability 
I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins on 
me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the 
States. ... 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and 
there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national 
authority. . . . 

That there are persons in one section or another who seek to 
destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to 
do it, I will neither affirm nor deny ^ ; but if there be such, I 

1 Lincoln might have affirmed it with perfect truth. Only two days 
before he made this inaugural address Senator Wigfall of Texas made 
the following remarks in the United States Senate: "This Federal Gov- 
ernment is dead. . . . Believing — no, sir, not believing, but knowing — 



Secessioji 383 

need address no word to them. To those, however, who really 
love the Union may I not speak ? . . . 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove 
our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable 
wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and 
go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but 
the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot 
but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hos- 
tile, must continue between them. Is it possible then to make 
that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after 
separation than befof'e} Can aliens make treaties easier than 
friends can make laws ? . . . 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who 
inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Gov- 
ernment, they can exercise their constitutiofial right of amending 
it, or their revolutionary right to dismember and overthrow it. 
. . . The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the 
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for 
the separation of the States. . . . His duty is to administer the 
present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it 
unimpaired by him to his successor. . . . 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate 
justice of the people .'' Is there any better or equal hope in the 
world ? . . , 

By the frame of the Government under which we live this 
same people have wisely given their public servants but little 
power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for 

that this Union is dissolved, never, never to be reconstructed on any 
terms — not if you were to hand us blank paper, and ask us to write a 
Constitution, would we ever again be confederated with you. . . . Our 
objection to living in this Union is . . . that you wholly and utterly mis- 
apprehend the form of government. You deny the sovereignty of the 
States ; you deny the right of self-government in the people ; you insist 
upon negro equality ; your people interfere impertinently with our in- 
stitutions and attempt to subvert them ; you publish newspapers ; you 
deliver lectures ; you print pamphlets, and you send them among us, 
first to excite our slaves to insurrection against their masters, and next 
to array one class of citizens against the other." — Congressional Globe, 
36th Congress, 2d session, pp. 1 399-1 400. 



384 



The Crisis of Disunio7i 



the return of that little to their own hands at very short in- 
tervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilence no 
Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can 
very seriously injure the Government in the short space of 
four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this 
whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If 
there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step 
which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frus- 
trated by taking time ; but no good object can be frustrated by 
it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Con- 
stitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your 
own framing under it ; while the new Administration will have 
no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were 
admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the 
dispute, still there is no single good reason for precipitate ac- 
tion. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance 
on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still 
competent to adjust in the best way all our present difTficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government 
will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being 
yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in 
heaven to destroy the Government, while /shall have the most 
solemn one to '' preserve, protect, and defend " it. 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it 
must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of 
memory, stretching from every battle-field and every patriot 
grave, to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, 
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. 



88. The Murat Halstead, a distinguished journalist, made the 

Chicago con- ,, • •, r .1 • m • i r r^^ 

vention, Circuit oi the conventions m the summer of 1800, as 

May 16-18, correspondent for the Cincin7tati Commercial. Later in 

MjQi the year he compiled, from his own lively letters and the 



Secession 385 

official reports, a '' History of the National Political Con- 
ventions of the Current Presidential Campaign." Of the 
exciting scenes which attended the nomination of Abraham 
Lincoln he writes : 

The crowd this evening is becoming prodigious. The Tre- 
mont House is so crammed that it is with much difficulty peo- 
ple get about in it from one room to another. Near fifteen 
hundred people will sleep in it tonight. The principal lions in 
this house are Horace Greeley and Frank P. Blair, Sen. The 
way Greeley is stared at as he shuffles about, looking as inno- 
cent as ever, is itself a sight. Whenever he appears there is a 
crowd gaping at him, and if he stops to talk a minute with some 
one who wishes to consult him as the oracle, the crowd becomes 
dense as possible, and there is the most eager desire to hear the 
words of wisdom that are supposed to fall on such occasions. . . . 

The city of Chicago is attending to this Convention in magnif- 
icent style. It is a great place for large hotels, and all have 
their capacity for accommodation tested. The great feature is 
the Wigwam, erected within the past month, expressly for the 
use of the Convention, by the Republicans of Chicago, at a cost 
of seven thousand dollars. It is a small edition of the New 
York Crystal Palace, built of boards, and will hold ten thou- 
sand persons comfortably, and is admirable for its acoustic 
excellence. An ordinary voice can be heard through the whole 
structure with ease. . . . 

The current of Universal twaddle this morning is that '' Old 
Abe " will be the nominee. . . . The badges of different candi- 
dates are making their appearance, and a good many of the 
dunces of the occasion go about duly labelled. I saw an old 
man this morning with a woodcut of Edward Bates pasted out- 
side his hat. The Seward men have a badge of silk with his 
likeness and name, and some wag pinned one of them to Horace 
Greeley's back yesterday.-^ . . . The hour for the meeting of the 

1 Greeley, the very influential editor of the New York T^-ihine, was 
bitterly opposed to Seward. He favored the nomination of Edward Bates 
of Missouri. Still, the Seward forces were so well organized and espe- 
cially so well supplied with funds, that it seemed the night before the 



386 The Crisis of Disimion 

Convention approaches, and the agitation of the city is exceed- 
ingly great. Vast as the Wigwam is, not one fifth of those who 
would be glad to get inside can be accommodated. . . . 

Horace Greeley and Eli Thayer have agreed upon the follow- 
ing resolution, which Greeley is at work to make one of the 
planks of the platform : " Resolved, That holding liberty to be 
the natural birthright of every human being, we maintain that 
slavery can only exist where it has been previously established 
by laws constitutionally enacted ; and we are inflexibly opposed 
to its establishment in the Territories by legislative, executive or 
judicial intervention. . . ." 

When the Convention was called to order [the third day], 
breathless attention was given the proceedings. There was not 
a space a foot square in the Wigwam unoccupied. There were 
tens of thousands still outside. . . . Mr. Evarts of New York 
nominated Mr. Seward, Mr. Judd of Illinois nominated Mr. Lin- 
coln . . . the only names that produced " tremendous applause " 
were those of Seward and Lincoln. Everybody felt that the 
fight was between them, and yelled accordingly. . . . 

The division of the first vote ^ caused a fall in Seward stock. 
It was seen that Lincoln, Cameron, and Bates had the strength 
to defeat Seward, and it was known that the greater part of the 
Chase vote would go to Lincoln. . . . 

The Convention proceeded to a second ballot. . . . On this 
ballot Lincoln gained seventy-nine votes! Seward had 184^ 
votes ; Lincoln 181. . . . 'It now dawned upon the multitude, 
that the presumption entertained the night before, that the Sew- 
ard men would have everything their own way, was a mistake. . . . 

While this [third] ballot was taken amid excitement that tested 
the nerves, ... it was whispered about — "Lincoln's the coming 



balloting as though the New Yorker would be chosen. Greeley tele- 
graphed to the Ti'ibune at 11.40 P.M.: "My conclusion from all I can 
gather tonight is that the opposition to Gov. Seward cannot concentrate 
on any candidate, and that he will be nominated. — H.G." — J. F.Rhodes, 
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, Vol. II, 
p. 465. 

1 The vote was : Seward 173^, Lincoln 102, Cameron 50^, Chase 49, 
Bates 48, with scattering votes for seven other candidates. 



Secession 387 

man ; he will be nominated this ballot." When the roll of States 
and Territories had been called, I had ceased to give attention to 
any votes but those for Lincoln, and had his vote added up as 
it was given. The number of votes necessary to a choice were 
233, and I saw under my pencil as the Lincoln column was 
completed, the figures 231^ — only a vote and a half to give 
him the nomination. ... In about ten ticks of a watch, Cartter 
of Ohio was up. . . . He said : " I rise, Mr. Chairman, to an- 
nounce the change of four votes of Ohio from Mr. Chase to 
Mr. Lincoln. The deed was done. The nerves of the thousands, 
which through hours of suspense had been subjected to terrible 
tension, relaxed, and as the deep breaths of relief were taken, 
there was a noise in the Wigwam like the rush of a great wind, 
in the van of a storm — and in another breath, the storm was 
there. There were thousands cheering with the energy of 
insanity. . . . 

The fact of the Convention was the defeat of Seward rather 
than the nomination of Lincoln. It was the triumph of a 
presumption of availability over preeminence in intellect and 
unrivalled fame — a success of the ruder qualities of manhood 
and the more homely attributes of popularity over the arts 
of a consummate politician, and the splendor of accomplished 
statesmanship.^ 

Now that the business of the Convention was transacted, 
we had the usual stump speeches, and complimentary reso- 
lutions. . . . The city was wild with delight. The " Old Abe " 
men formed processions, and bore rails through the streets. . . . 
A hundred guns were fired from the top of the Tremont House. 
The Chicago Press and Tribune office was illuminated. That 
paper says : " On each side of the counting-room door stood a 

1 One enthusiastic Lincoln man went shouting through the Tremont 
House : " Talk of your money, and bring on your bullies with you 
[Seward's marchers] ! the immortal principles of the everlasting people 
are with Abe Lincoln, by — ! " The Southern politicians were disgusted 
and exasperated by Lincoln's nomination. Senator Wigfall sneered in 
the Senate at the " ex-rail-splitter, ex-grocery-keeper, ex-flatboat cap- 
tain, and ex-Abolitionist-lecturer." — Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 
2d session, p. 1400. 



388 The Crisis of Disunion 

rail — out of the three thousand split by 'honest Old Abe' 
thirty years ago on the Sangamon River bottoms. On the 
inside were two more, brilliantly hung with tapers. 

I left the city on the night train on the Fort Wayne and 
Chicago road. The train consisted of eleven cars, every seat 
full and people standing in the aisles and corners. ... At every 
station where there was a village until after two o'clock there 
were tar barrels burning, drums beating, boys carrying rails ; 
and guns, great and small, banging away. 

89. A South- Honorable Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, later 
for^miion ^^ ^i^e President of the Confederacy, was the last of the 
November 14, distinguished Southern statesmen to give up hope for the 



[412] 



peaceful adjustment of the differences between North and 
South. In a speech before the Georgia legislature, a 
week after Lincoln's election, he said : 

. . . The first question that presents itself is. Shall the people 
of Georgia secede from the Union in consequence of the election 
of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States ? My 
countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I 
do not think they ought. In my judgment, the election of no 
man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient 
cause to justify any State to separate from the Union. It 
ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution 
of the country. ... If all our hopes are to be blasted, if the 
Republic is to go down, let us be found to the last moment 
standing on the deck with the Constitution of the United States 
waving over our heads. Let the fanatics of the North break the 
Constitution, if such is their fell purpose. Let the responsibility 
be with them. . . . We went into the election with this people. 
The result was different from what we wished ; but the election 
has been constitutionally held. Were we to make a point of re- 
sistance to the Government, and go out of the Union merely on 
that account, the record would be made up hereafter against us. 

But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against 
the Constitution, and that, if he carries them out, it will be de- 
structive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. 



Secession 389 

If he violates the Constitution, then will come our time to act. . . . 
I do not anticipate that Mr. Lincoln will do anything to jeopard 
our safety or security, whatever may be his spirit to do it ; for 
he is bound by the Constitutional checks which are thrown 
around him, which at this time render him powerless to do any 
great mischief. This shows the wisdom of our system. The 
President of the United States is no Emperor — no Dictator. 
He is clothed with no absolute power. He can do nothing 
unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of 
Representatives is largely in a majority against him. . . . The 
gains in the Democratic party in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New 
Jersey, New York, Indiana, and other States . . . have been 
enough to make a majority of near thirty in the next House 
against Mr. Lincoln. . . . 

In the Senate he will also be powerless. There will be a 
majority of four against him. . . . Mr. Lincoln cannot appoint 
an officer without the consent of the Senate, he cannot form a 
Cabinet without the same consent. . . . Why then, I say, should 
we disrupt the ties of this Union, when his hands are tied — 
when he can do nothing against us ? 

My honorable friend who addressed you last night [Mr. 
Toombs]^ and to whom I listened with the profoundest attention, 

1 Senator Robert Toombs, a Union man in 1S50, had given up hope 
of preserving the Union. He went back to \Yashington in December, 
i860, but after the failure of the Crittenden amendments he telegraphed 
to the citizens of Georgia, December 23, i860 : '' I came here to secure 
your constitutional rights or to demonstrate to you that you can get no 
guarantees for these rights from your Northern confederates. The 
whole subject was referred to a committee of 13 in the Senate yes- 
terday. I was appointed ... I submitted propositions which . . . 
were all treated with derision or contempt. . . . The committee is con- 
trolled by Black Republicans, your enemies, who only seek to amuse 
you with delusive hope until your election [to a state convention] in 
order that you may defeat the friends of secession. ... I tell you upon 
the faith of a true man, that all further looking to the North for security 
for your constitutional rights in this Union ought to be instantly aban- 
doned. . . . Secession by the 4th of March next should be thundered 
from the ballot-box by the unanimous voice of Georgia." — U. B. Phillips, 
Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, Annual Report of 
the American Historical Association, 191 1, Vol. II, p. 525. 



390 ^/^^ Crisis of Disunion 

asks if we would submit to Black Republican rule ? I say to 
you and to him, as a Georgian, I never would submit to any 
Black Republican aggression upon our Constitutional rights . . . ; 
and if they cannot be maintained in the Union standing on the 
Georgia Platform [see No. 8i, p. 352], where I have stood from 
the time of its adoption, I would be in favor of disrupting every 
tie which binds the States together. I will have equality for 
Georgia, and for the citizens of Georgia, in this Union, or I will 
look for new safeguards elsewhere. This is my position. The 
only question now is, Can this be secured in the Union ? . . . In 
my judgment, it may yet be. . . . 

My countrymen, I am not of those who believe this Union 
has been a curse up to this time. True men, men of integrity, 
entertain different views from me on this subject. . . . Nor will 
I undertake to say that this Government of our Fathers is per- 
fect. There is nothing perfect in this world of human origin. . . , 
But that this Government of our Fathers, with all its defects, 
comes nearer the objects of all good governments than any other 
on the face of the earth, is my settled conviction. . . . 

When I look around and see our prosperity in everything — 
agriculture, commerce, art, science, and every department of 
progress physical, mental, and moral — certainly in the face of 
such an exhibition, if we can, without the loss of power or any 
essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to 
ourselves and posterity to do so. . . . 

Should Georgia determine to go out of the Union ... I 
shall bow to the will of her people. Their cause is my cause, 
and their destiny is my destiny ; and I trust this will be the ulti- 
mate course of all. The greatest curse that can befall a free 
people is civil war. . . . 

I am for exhausting all that patriotism demands, before 
taking the last step. I would invite, therefore. South Carolina 
to a conference. I would ask the same of all the other Southern 
States, so that if the evil has got beyond our control, which God 
in his mercy grant may not be the case, we may not be divided 
among ourselves. ... In this way, our sister Southern States 
can be induced to act with us ; and I have but little doubt that 
the States of New York, and Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and the 



Secession 391 

other Western States, will compel their Legislatures to recede 
from their hostile attitude. . . . 

I am, as you clearly perceive, for maintaining the Union as 
it is, if possible. I will exhaust every means thus to maintain 
it with an equality in it. My position, then, in conclusion, is 
for the maintenance of the honor, the rights, the equality, the 
security, and the glory of my native State in the Union, if pos- 
sible. But if all this fails, we shall at least have the satisfaction 
of knowing that we have done our duty, and all that patriotism 
could require. 

The Southern Confederacy 

That each succeeding census marked the increasing 9o. "The 
preponderance of population in the free states, with their N^h,°^ jan- 
correspondingly increasing majorities in the presidential "^^' ^^^'^ 
electoral columns and the House of Representatives, was ^^^^^ 
the ultimate offense of the North in the eyes of the South. 
It was also a ''crime of the North," in the eyes of stern 
antislavery men, that the nerveless administration at Wash- 
ington should encourage a statesman of Georgia to " have 
but little doubt that the States of New York, and Pennsyl- 
vania, and Ohio, and the other Western States would 
compel their Legislatures to recede from their hostile 
attitude " toward slavery. In an article in the Atlantic 
Monthly for January, 1861, James Russell Lowell scourges 
Buchanan with scorpions for his subserviency to the slavery 
interests. 

Mr. Buchanan seems to have no opinion, or, if he has one 
it is a halting between two, a bat-like cross of sparrow and 
mouse, that gives timidity its choice between flight and skulk- 
ing. . . . Mr. Buchanan, by his training in a system of politics 
without a parallel for intrigue, personality, and partisanship, 
w^ould have unfitted himself from taking a statesmanlike view 
of anything, even if he had ever been capable of it. . . . We 



392 The Crisis of Dis?iJiion 

could not have expected from him a Message^ around which 
the spirit, the intelligence and the character of the country 
would have rallied. But he might have saved himself from the 
evil fame of being the first of our Presidents who could never 
forget himself into a feeling of the dignity of the place he 
occupied. He has always seemed to consider the Presidency 
as a retaining-fee paid him by the slavery-propagandists, and 
his Message to the present Congress looks like the last juice- 
less squeeze of the orange which the South is tossing con- 
temptuously away. 

Mr. Buchanan admits as real the assumed wrongs of the 
South Carolina revolutionists, and even, if we understand him, 
allows that they are great enough to justify revolution. But 
he advises the secessionists to pause and try what can be done 
by negotiation. . . . 

In 1832, General Jackson bluntly called the South Carolina 
doctrines treason, and the country sustained him. That they 
are not characterized in the same way now does not prove any 
difference in the thing, but only in the times and the men. 
They are none the less treason because James Buchanan is less 
than Andrew Jackson, but they are all the more dangerous. . . . 

The subservience on the question of Slavery, which has 
hitherto characterized both the great parties of the country, 
has strengthened the hands of the extremists at the South, and 
has enabled them to get control of public opinion there by 
fostering false notions of Southern superiority and Northern 
want of principle. We have done so much to make them be- 
lieve in their importance to us, and given them so little occasion 

1 Referring to Buchanan's last annual message of December 4, i860, 
in which, after saying : " The framers of this government never intended 
to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction," and, '' Seces- 
sion is neither more nor less than revolution," the President goes on to 
comfort the South by the doctrine that Congress had no power under 
the Constitution to compel a State to remain in the Union. Seward in a 
letter to his wife, December 5, summed up the case with humorous 
indignation : " The message shows conclusively that it is the duty of 
the President to execute the laws — unless somebody opposes him ; and 
that no State has a right to go out of the Union — unless it wants to." 
— F. W. Seward, Life of Seward, Vol. IT, p. 480. 



Secession 393 

even to suspect our importance to them, that we have taught 
them to regard themselves as the natural rulers of the country, 
and to look upon the Union as a favor granted to our weakness, 
whose withdrawal would be our ruin. Accordingly, they have 
grown more and more exacting, till at length the hack politi- 
cians of the Free States have become so imbued with the notion 
of yielding, and so incapable of believing in any principle of 
action higher than temporary expedients to carry an election 
. . . that Mr. Buchanan gravely proposes that the Republican 
party should pacify South Carolina by surrendering the very 
creed that called it into existence. . . . Worse than this, when 
the Free States, by overwhelming majorities have just expressed 
their conviction that slavery, as the creature of local law, can 
claim no legitimate extension beyond the limits of that law, he 
asks their consent to denationalize freedom and to nationalize 
slavery by an amendment of the Federal Constitution that shall 
make the local law of the Slave States paramount throughout 
the Union. Mr. Buchanan would stay the yellow fever by 
abolishing the quarantine hospital and planting a good virulent 
case or two in every village in the land. 

We do not underestimate the gravity of the present crisis, 
and we agree that nothing should be done to exasperate it ; 
but if the people of the Free States have been taught anything 
by the repeated lessons of bitter experience, it has been that 
submission is not the seed of conciliation, but of contempt and 
encroachment. The wolf never goes for mutton to the mastiff. 
It is quite time that it should be understood that freedom is 
also an institution deserving some attention in a Model Republic, 
that a decline in stocks is more tolerable and more transcient 
than one in public spirit, and that material prosperity was never 
known to abide long in a country that had lost its political 
morality. The fault of the Free States in the eyes of the South 
is not one that can be atoned for by any yielding of special 
points here and there. Their offence is that they are free, and 
that their habits and prepossessions are those of Freedom. 
Their crime is the census of i860. Their increase in numbers, 
wealth, and power is a standing aggression. It would not be 
enough to please the Southern States that we should stop 



394 Tf^^ Crisis of Disunion 

asking them to abolish Slavery — what they demand of us is 
nothing less than that we should abolish the spirit of the age. 
Our very thoughts are a menace. It is not the North, but the 
South, that forever agitates the question of Slavery. ... It is 
the stars in their courses that fight against their system, and 
there are those who propose to make everything comfortable 
by Act of Congress. . . . 

A dissolution of the Union would be a terrible thing, but 
not so terrible as an acquiescence in the theory that Property 
is the only interest that binds men together in society, and that 
its protection is the highest object of human government. ... 

It is time that the South should learn, if they do not begin 
to suspect it already, that the difficulty of the Slavery question 
is slavery itself — nothing more, nothing less. It is time that 
the North should learn that it has nothing left to compromise 
but the rest of its self-respect. Nothing will satisfy the ex- 
tremists at the South short of a reduction of the Free States 
to a mere police for the protection of an institution whose 
danger increases at an equal pace with its wealth. . . . The 
greatest danger of disunion would spring from a want of self- 
possession and spirit in the Free States. 

91. Seces- In response to many letters from his fellov^ citizens of 

tmcationand" Georgia, Honorable Hov^ell Cobb, Secretary of the Treas- 
its accom- ^ry under Buchanan, published a pamphlet of sixteen pages 

plishment, 

December, in December, i860, entitled, " Letter of Hon. Howell Cobb 
^ ° to the People of Georgia on the Present Condition of the 

^ ^ Country." In it he answers the specific question, Does 
the election of Lincoln to the Presidency, in the usual 
and constitutional mode, justify the Southern States in 
dissolving the Union } After a severe arraignment of the 
Black Republican party, he concludes : 

What are the facts to justify the hope that the Black Re- 
publicans will recede from their well defined position of hostility 
to the South and her institutions ? Are they to be found in the 
two millions of voters who have deliberately declared in favor 



Secession 395 

of these doctrines by their support of Lincoln ? Is the hope 
based upon the fact that an overwhelming majority of the 
people of every Northern State save one^ cast their vote for 
the Black Republican candidate ? Is it drawn from the fact 
that on the fourth of March next the chair of Washington is 
to be filled by a man who hates the institution of slavery as 
much as any other abolitionist, and who has not only declared 
but used all the powers of his intellect to prove that our slaves 
are our equals and that all laws which hold otherwise are vio- 
lative of the Declaration of Independence and at war with the 
law of God — a man who is indebted for his present election 
to the Presidency alone to his abolition sentiments — and who 
stands pledged to the doctrine of the '' irrepressible conflict," 
and indeed claims to be its first advocate ? Or shall we look 
for this hope in the whispered intimation that when secure in 
his office, Lincoln will prove faithless to the principles of his 
party and false to his own pledges, or in his emphatic declara- 
tion of May 1859, that he would oppose the lowering of the 
Republican standard by a hair's breadth^ or in the public an- 
nouncement made by Senator Trumbull of Illinois, since the 
election, in the presence of Mr. Lincoln, that he, Lincoln, would 
" maintain and carry forward the principles on which he was 
elected,''^ at the same time holding up the military power of the 
United States as the instrumentality to enforce obedience to 
the incoming abolition administration, should any Southern State 
secede from the Union ; or in the prospect of a more efficient 
execution of the fugitive slave law, when the marshall's offices 
in all the Northern States shall have been filled with Lincoln's 
abolition appointees ; or in the refusal of Vermont, since the 
election of Lincoln, by the decisive vote of more than two to 
one in her Legislature, to repeal the Personal Liberty Bill of 

1 That is, New Jersey, in which Douglas received three electoral 
votes. The statement is a gross exaggeration. " Overwhelming majori- 
ties" can hardly be spoken of in the light of the following figures: in 
New York, Lincoln 362,646, Douglas 312,510; in Illinois, Lincoln 
172,161, Douglas 160,215; in Indiana, Lincoln 139,033, Douglas, 115,509; 
in New Hampshire, Lincoln 37,519, Douglas 25,881 ; in California, 
Lincoln 39,173, Douglas 38,516. 



396 TJie Crisis of Disnnioji 

that State ... or shall we be pointed to the defiant tones of 
triumph which fill the whole Northern air with the wild shouts 
of joy and thanksgiving that the days of slavery are numbered, 
and the hour draws nigh when the " higher law " and " hatred 
of slavery and slaveholders " shall be substituted for " the Con- 
stitution " and the spirit of former brotherhood ; or to the cold 
irony which speaks through their press of the '^ inconvenience " 
of negro insurrections, arson, and murder which may result in 
the South from the election of Lincoln. . . . 

I refer to one other source upon which the South is asked 
to rely, and will then close the argument. We are expected, in 
view of all these facts, to rely for our safety and protection 
upon an uncertain and at best trembling majority in the two 
Houses of Congress, and told, with an earnest appeal for further 
delay, that with a majority in Congress against him Lincoln is 
powerless to do us harm.^ ... It is true that without a majority 
in Congress Lincoln will not be able to carry out at p7'esent all 
the aggressive measures of his party. But let me ask if that 
feeble and constantly-decreasing majority in Congress against 
him can arrest that tide of popular sentiment at the North 
against slavery, which, sweeping down all barriers of truth, 
justice, and constitutional duty, has borne Mr. Lincoln into the 
presidential chair? Can that Congressional majority, faint and 
feeble as it is known to be, repeal the unconstitutional legisla- 
tion of those ten nullifying States of the North 1 ^ Can it restore 
the lost equality of the Southern States ? . . . Can it control the 
power and patronage of President Lincoln ? . . . Can it exercise 
its power in one single act of legislation in our favor without 
the concurrence of Lincoln ? . . . True but over-anxious friends of 
Union at the North, faithful but over-confiding men of the South, 
may catch at this Congressional majority straw, but it will only 
be to grasp and sink with it. 

The facts and considerations which I have endeavored to 
bring to your view present the propriety of resistance on the 

1 See the argument of Alexander H. Stephens in his speech of No- 
vember 14, i860 (No. 89, p. 389). 

2 That is, the Northern states which by their Personal Liberty bills 
had "nullified" the P'ugitive Slave Act of 1850. 






Secession 397 

part of the South to the election of Lincoln in a very different 
light from the mere question of resisting the election of a Presi- 
dent who has been chosen in the fisual and constitutional mode. 
It is not simply that a comparatively obscure abolitionist, who 
hates the institutions of the South, has been elected President 
. . . that the South contemplates resistance even to disunion. 
Wounded honor might tolerate the outrage until by another 
vote of the people the nuisance could be abated. But the elec- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln involves far higher considerations. It brings 
to the South the solemn judgment of a majority of the people 
of every Northern State — with a solitary exception — in favor 
of doctrines and principles violative of her constitutional rights, 
humiliating to her pride, destructive of her equality in the Union, 
and fraught with the greatest danger to the peace and safety 
of her people. It can be regarded in no other light than a declara- 
tion of the purpose and intention of the North to continue, with 
the power of the Federal Government, the war already com- 
menced by the ten nullifying States of the North upon the institu- 
tion of slavery and the constitutional rights of the South. . . . 

The issue must now be met, or forever abandoned. Equality 
and safety in the Union are at an end ; and it only remains to 
be seen whether our manhood is equal to the task of asserting 
and maintaining independence out of it. The Union formed by 
our Fathers was one of- equality, justice, and fraternity. On the 
fourth of March it will be supplanted by a Union of sectionalism 
and hatred. . . . Black Republicanism has buried brotherhood in 
the same grave with the Constitution. We are no longer '' breth- 
ren dwelling together in unity." The ruling spirits of the North 
are Black Republicans — and between them and the people of 
the South there is no other feeling than that of bitter and in- 
tense hatred. Aliens in heart, no power on earth can keep them 
united. Nothing now holds us together but the cold formalities 
of a broken and violated Constitution. Heaven has pronounced 
the decree of divorce, and it will be accepted by the South as 
the only solution which gives to her a promise of future peace 
and safety. . . . 

Fellow-citizens of Georgia, I have endeavored to place before 
you the facts of the case in plain and unimpassioned language. . . . 



39^ The Crisis of Disunio7i 

On the 4^^^ of March 1861, the Government will pass into the 
hands of the Abolitionists. It will then cease to have the slightest 
claim either upon your confidence or your loyalty ; and, in my 
honest judgment, each hour that Georgia remains thereafter a 
member of the Union will be an hour of degradation, to be 
followed by certain and speedy ruin. I entertain no doubt of 
either your right or duty to secede from the Union. Arouse, 
then, all your manhood for the great work before you, and be 
prepared on that day to announce and maintain your independ- 
ence out of the Union, for you will never again have equality 
and justice in it. Identified with you in heart, feeling, and in- 
terest, I return to share in whatever destiny the future has in 
store for our State and ourselves. 

Two days after writing the above letter, Secretary Cobb 
put his resignation in President Buchanan's hands. 

Washington City, Dec. 8, i860 

My dear Sir : A sense of duty to the State of Georgia 
requires me to take a step which makes it proper that I should 
no longer continue to be a member of your Cabinet. 

In the troubles of the country consequent upon the late 
Presidential Election, the honor and safety of my State are in- 
volved. Her people so regard it, and in their opinion I fully 
concur. They are engaged in a struggle where the issue is life 
or death. My friends ask for my views and counsel. Not to 
respond would be degrading to myself and unjust to them. I 
have accordingly prepared, and must now issue to them, an ad- 
dress which contains the calm and solemn convictions of my 
heart and judgment. . . . 

For nearly four years I have been associated with you as one 
of your Cabinet officers, and during that period nothing has oc- 
curred to mar, even for a moment, our personal and official 
relations. In the policy and measures of your Administration I 
have cordially concurred, and shall ever feel proud of the hum- 
ble place which my name may occupy in its history. If your 
wise counsels and patriotic warnings had been heeded by your 
countrymen, the fourth of March next would have found our 



Secession 399 

country happy, prosperous, and united. That this will not be 
so is no fault of yours. 

The evil has now passed beyond control, and must be met 
by each and all of us under our responsibility to God and our 
country. If, as I believe, history will have to record yours as 
the last administration of our present Union, it will also place it 
side by side with the purest and ablest of those that preceded it. 

With the kindest regards for yourself and the members of 
your Cabinet, with whom I have been so pleasantly associated. 

On December 20, i860, the convention which had 
been assembled in South Carolina, on the news of Lin- 
coln's election, by a unanimous vote of its one hundred 
and sixty-nine members adopted the following ordinance : 



TO DISSOLVE THE UNION BETWEEN THE STATE OF 
SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE OTHER STATES UNITED 
WITH HER UNDER THE COMPACT ENTITLED "THE 
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" 

We^ the people of the State of Snith Carolina, in Conveiition 
assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and 
ordaified 

That the ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the 
tw^enty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the 
United States of America was ratified, and also all Acts and 
parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying 
amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed ; and 
that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and the 
other States, under the name of the " United States of America " 
is hereby dissolved.^ 

1 Accompanying the ordinanccj was issued (December 24) a Declara- 
tion of Causes, in which the state, " having resumed her separate and 
equal place among nations," deemed it due to herself and the other 
states of the Union to declare the causes of separation. After accusing 
the Northern states of a steady course of poHcy for twenty-five years, 
destructive of constitutional government, the Declaration concludes by 



400 TJic Crisis of Disunion 

The subsequent ordinances of secession were more 
detailed than the single paragraph of the South Carolina 
convention. The following ordinance of Alabama, adopted 
January ii, 1861, is unique in its specific mention of the 
election of Lincoln as the cause of secession, as well as in 
its invitation to all the other slaveholding states, whether 
they had seceded or not, to meet in a convention for 
*' securing concerted and harmonious action " : 

Whereas^ the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal 
Hamlin to the offices of President and Vice President of the 
United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hos- 
tile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security 
of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and 
dangerous infractions of the Constitution of the United States 
by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is 
a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as 
to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption 
of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and 
security : Therefore 

Be it dedaj'ed and ordained by the people of the State of Ala- 
bama in conveiition assembled, I'hat the State of Alabama now 
withdraws, and is withdrawn, from the Union known as " the 
United States of America," and henceforth ceases to be one of the 
said United States, and is, and of right ought to be, a sovereign 
and independent State. 

Sec. 2 . Be it further decla?'ed a?id ordained by the people of the 
State of Alabama in convention assembled, That all the powers 
over the territory of said State, and over the people thereof, 
heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States 
of America be, and they are hereby, withdrawn from said 

an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of the 
conduct of the convention, and the unequivocal announcement of the 
independence of South Carolina, " with full power to levy war, con- 
clude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other 
acts and things which independent States may of right do." Printed in 
American History Leaflets, ed. Hart and Channing, No. 12, pp. 3-9. 



Secession 40 1 

Government, and are hereby resumed and vested in the people 
of the State of Alabama. 

And as it is the desire and purpose of the State of Alabama 
to meet the slaveholding States of the South who may approve 
such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as a per- 
manent government, upon the principles of the Constitution of 
the United States 

Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assem- 
bled, That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, 
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, 
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, 
and Missouri, be, and are hereby, invited to meet the people of 
the State of Alabama, by their delegates, in convention, on the 
4*^ day of February, a.d. 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in 
the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each 
other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and 
harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most 
desirable for our common peace and security. 

And be it*further resolved, That the President of this conven- 
tion be, and is hereby, instructed to transmit forthwith a copy 
of the foregoing preamble, ordinance, and resolutions, to the 
Governors of the several States named in said resolutions. 

Done by the people of the State of Alabama, in convention 
assembled, at Montgomery, on this, the 11'^ day of January, 
A.D. 1861. 

The Fall of Fort Sumter 

Captain Abner Doubleday, from whose vivid narrative 92. The 
the following extract is taken, was second in command to oJ ^ort Sum- 
Maior Robert Anderson in the little garrison at Fort Sum- t^r, April 12- 
ter. It was Doubleday who conducted the transfer of 



Anderson's force from Fort Moultrie on the mainland to 
F^ort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, on December 1 6, 
i860 ; 1 it was he who fired the first gun from the parapet 

^ Anderson's dispatch to Colonel Cooper, adjutant general, dated 
from Fort Sumter, December 16, i860, 8 p.m.: "Colonel: I have the 
honor to report that I have just completed, by the blessing of God, the 



[4241 



402 The Crisis of Diswiion 

of Sumter in reply to Beauregard's bombardment ; and it 
was he who after the surrender led the garrison out with 
the honors of war, the flag flying, and the band playing 
"Yankee Doodle." 

The enemy's batteries on Sullivan's Island were so placed as 
to fire directly into the officers' quarters at Fort Sumter; and 
as our rooms would necessarily become untenable, we vacated 
them, and chose points that were more secure. . . . About 4 a.m. 
on the 12*'' [of April] I was awakened by some one groping 
about my room in the dark and calling out my name. It proved 
to be Anderson who came to announce to me that he had just 
received a dispatch from Beauregard,-^ dated 3.20 a.m., to the 
effect that he should fire upon us in an hour. . . . 

As soon as the outline of our fort could be distinguished, the 
enemy carried out their programme. ... In a moment the fir- 
ing burst forth in one continuous roar, and large patches of both 
the exterior and interior masonry began to crumble and fall in 
all directions.^ The place where I was had been used for the 

removal to this fort of all my garrison, except the surgeon, four non- 
commissioned officers, and seven men. We have one year's supply of 
hospital stores and about four months' supply of provisions for my com- 
mand. I left orders to have all the guns at Fort Moultrie spiked, and 
the carriages of the 32-pounders, which are old, destroyed. I have sent 
orders to Captain Foster, who remains at Fort Moultrie, to destroy all 
the ammunition which he cannot send over. The step which I have 
taken was, in my opinion, necessary to prevent the effusion of blood." 
— Quoted by S. W. Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War, p. 106. 

1 Dispatch of Colonel Chestnut and Captain Lee to Major Ander- 
son, dated April 12, 1861, 3.30 a.m. : " Sir: By authority of Brigadier- 
General Beauregard, commanding the provisional forces of the 
Confederate States, we have the honor to notify you that he will open 
the fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time." 
The Genesis of the Civil War, p. 426. 

2 S. W. Crawford, surgeon general of the garrison, gives the follow- 
ing picture of the opening of the fire : " The sea was calm, and the night 
still under the bright starlight, when at 4.30 a.m. the sound of a mortar 
from a battery at Fort Johnson broke upon the stillness. It was the 
signal to the batteries around to open fire. The shell, fired by Capt. 
George St. James, who commanded the battery, rose high in air, and 



Secessio7i 403 

manufacture of cartridges, and there was still a good deal of 
powder there, some packed and some loose. A shell soon struck 
near the ventilator, and a puff of dense smoke entered the room, 
giving me a strong impression that there would be an immediate 
explosion. Fortunately, no sparks had penetrated inside. 

Nineteen batteries were now hammering at us, and the balls 
and shells from the ten-inch columbiads,^ accompanied by shells 
from the thirteen-inch mortars which constantly bombarded us, 
made us feel as if the war had commenced in earnest. 

When it was broad daylight, I went down to breakfast. I 
found the officers already assembled at one of the long tables 
in the mess-hall. Our party were calm, and even somewhat 
merry. . . . Our meal was not very sumptuous. It consisted 
of pork and water, but D' Crawford triumphantly brought forth 
a little farina, which he had found in a corner of the hospital. 

When this frugal repast was over, my company was told off in 
three details for firing purposes, to be relieved afterward by Sey- 
mour's company. As I was the ranking officer, I took the first 
detachment, and marched them to the casemates, which looked 
out upon the powerful iron-clad battery of Cummings Point. 

In aiming the first gun fired against the rebellion I had no 
feeling of self-reproach, for I fully believed that the contest was 
inevitable and was not of our seeking. The United States was 
called upon not only to defend its sovereignty, but its right to 
exist as a nation. The only alternative was to submit to a 
powerful oligarchy who were determined to make freedom for- 
ever subordinate to slavery. To me it was simply a contest, 
politically speaking, as to whether virtue or vice should rule. . . . 

curving in its course, burst almost directly over the fort. A silence 
followed for a few moments, when a gun opened from the Ironclad 
battery on Cummings Point. Hardly had the echo of this opening gun 
died upon the air, when the mortars nearest to the fort opened their fire, 
which was at once followed by others in the neighborhood, and in suc- 
cession by the batteries around, until the fort was ' surrounded by a 
circle of fire.'" — The Genesis of the Civil War, p. 427. 

^ The columbiad was a cast iron smooth-bore cannon from which 
both shells and solid shot were fired. It was used extensively in the 
War of 18 1 2, but was already old-fashioned at the opening of the 
Civil War. 



404 J^ft-^ Crisis of Disimioii 

The firing continued all day, without any special incident of 
importance, and without our making much impression on the 
enemy's works. They had a great advantage over us, as their 
fire was concentrated on the fort, which was in the center of the 
circle, while ours was diffused over the circumference. Their 
missiles were exceedingly destructive to the upper exposed por- 
tion of the work, but no essential injury was done to the lower 
casemates which sheltered us. 

Some of these shells, however, set the officers' quarters on 
fire three times ; but the flames were promptly extinguished. . . . 

On the morning of the 13"', we took our breakfast — or, 
rather, our pork and water — at the usual hour, and marched the 
men to the guns when the meal was over. From 4 to 6 J a.m. 
the enemy's fire was very spirited. From 7 to 8 a.m. a rain- 
storm came on, and there was a lull in the cannonading. About 
8 A.M. the officers' quarters were ignited. . . . The fire was put 
out ; but at 10 a.m. a mortar shell passed through the roof, and 
lodged in the flooring of the second story, where it burst, and 
started the flames afresh. This, too, was extinguished ; but the 
hot shot soon followed each other so rapidly that it was impossi- 
ble for us to contend with them any longer. It became evident 
that the entire block, being built with wooden partitions, floors, 
and roofing, must be consumed, and that the magazine, containing 
300 barrels of powder, would be endangered. . . . 

While the officers exerted themselves with axes to tear down 
and cut away all woodwork in the vicinity, the soldiers were 
rolling barrels of powder out to more sheltered spots, and were 
covering them with wet blankets. . . . We only succeeded in 
getting out some 96 barrels of powder, and then we were 
obliged to close the massive copper door. . . . 

By 1 1 A.M. the conflagration was terrible and disastrous. One 
fifth of the fort was on fire, and the wind drove the smoke in 
dense masses into the angle where we all had taken refuge. It 
seemed impossible to escape suffocation. Some lay down close 
to the ground, with handkerchiefs over their mouths, and others 
posted themselves near the embrasures, where the smoke was 
somewhat lessened by the draught of air. Everyone suffered 
severely. I crawled out on one of these openings and sat on the 



Secession 405 

outer edge ; but Ripley [a Charleston gunner] made it lively for 
me there with his case-shot, which spattered all around. Had 
not a slight change of wind taken place, the result might have 
been fatal to most of us. . . . 

The scene at this time was really terrific. The roaring and 
crackling of the flames, the dense masses of whirling smoke, the 
bursting of the enemy's shells, and our own which were explod- 
ing in the burning rooms, the crashing of the shot and the sound 
of masonry falling in every direction, made the fort a pande- 
monium. When at last nothing was left of the building but the 
blackened walls and smoldering embers, it became painfully 
evident that an immense amount of damage had been done. 
There was a tower at each angle of the fort. One of these, 
containing great quantities of shells, upon which we had relied, 
was almost completely shattered by successive explosions. The 
massive wooden gates, studded with iron nails, were burned, 
and the wall built behind them was now a mere heap of debris, 
so that the main entrance was wide open for an assaulting party. 
The sally-ports were in similar condition, and the numerous 
windows on the gorge side, which had been planked up, had 
now become all open entrances. 

About 12.48 P.M. the end of the flagstaff was shot down, 
and the flag fell. It had previously been hanging by one halliard, 
the other having been cut by a piece of shell. The exultation 
of the enemy however was short-lived. Peter Hart found a 
spar in the fort which answered very well as a temporary flag- 
staff. He nailed the flag to this, and raised it triumphantly by 
nailing and tying the pole firmly to a pile of gun-carriages on 
the parapet. This was gallantly done, without undue haste, 
under Seymour's supervision, though the enemy concentrated 
all their fire upon the spot to prevent Hart from carrying out 
his intention. . . . 

About 2 P.M. Senator Wigfall [of Texas] in company with 
W. Gourdin Young of Charleston, unexpectedly made his 
appearance at one of the embrasures, having crossed over from 
Morris Island in a small boat, rowed by negroes. He had seen 
the flag come down, and supposed that we had surrendered in 
consequence of the burning of the quarters. . . . Wigfall, in 



4o6 The Crisis of Disunion 

Beauregard's name, offered Anderson his own terms, which 
were, the evacuation of the fort, with permission to salute our 
flag, and to march out with the honors of war, with our arms 
and private baggage, leaving all other war material behind. . . . 

When Beauregard received notice that Anderson was willing 
to ratify the terms agreed on, he sent over another boat con- 
taining Colonel Miles [and others] to arrange the details of the 
evacuation. . . . Our arrangements were few and simple, but 
the rebels made extensive preparations for the event, in order to 
give it the greatest eclat, and gain from it as much prestige as 
possible. The population of the surrounding country poured 
into Charleston in vast multitudes, to witness the humiliation of 
the United States flag. . . . 

The next morning, Sunday, the 1 4*'', we were up early, pack- 
ing our baggage in readiness to go on board the transport. The 
time having arrived, I made preparations, by order of Major 
Anderson, to fire a national salute to the flag. . . . The salute 
being over, the Confederate troops marched in to occupy the 
fort. . . . Anderson directed me to form the men on the parade- 
ground, assume command, and march them on board the trans- 
port. I told him I should prefer to leave the fort with the flag 
flying, and the drums beating Yankee Doodle, and he authorized 
me to do so. As soon as our tattered flag came down, and the 
silken banner made by the ladies of Charleston was run up, 
tremendous shouts of applause were heard from the vast multi- 
tude of spectators ; and all the vessels and steamers, with one 
accord, made for the fort. . . . 

As we went aboard the Isabel, with drums beating the 
national air, all eyes were fixed on us. . . . It was an hour of 
triumph for the originators of secession in South Carolina, and 
no doubt it seemed to them the culmination of all their hopes ; 
but could they have seen into the future with the eye of proph- 
ecy, their joy might have been turned into mourning. . . . 

My story is nearly done. We soon reached the Baltic, and 
were received with great sympathy and feeling by the army and 
navy officers present. . . . We arrived in New York on the 1 9'*", 
and were received with unbounded enthusiasm. All the passing 
steamers saluted us with their steam-whistles and bells, and 



Secession 407 

cheer after cheer went up from the ferry-boats and vessels in 
the harbor. . . . The principal city papers, the Tribune, Times, 
Herald, and Evening Post, gave us a hearty welcome. For a 
long time the enthusiasm in New York remained undiminished. 
It was impossible for us to venture into the main streets without 
being ridden on the shoulders of men, and torn to pieces by 
hand-shaking. ... It seemed as if every one of note called to 
express his devotion to the cause of the Union, and his sympathy 
with us, who had been its humble representatives amidst the 
perils of the first conflict of the war. 



i86i 
[435] 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE CIVIL WAR 

The Opposing Forces 

93. War The following proclamations and laws show how the 

Som April government at Washington met the outbreak of the Civil 
to August, War. They include {a) President Lincoln's call for 75,000 
volunteer troops on the day following the fall of Fort 
Sumter (April 15); (b) the President's declaration of a 
blockade of the coast of the seceded states (April 19) ; 
{c) the authorization of a national loan by Congress in 
extra session (July 17); {d) a resolution of Congress 
declaring the purpose of the war (July 22) ; and {e) an 
act to confiscate the property, including slaves, which was 
used to further the insurrection (August 6). 

{a) 

Whereas the laws of the United States have been, for some 
time past, and now are opposed, and the execution thereof 
obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 
Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too 
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial 
proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law : 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 
States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution 
and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call 
forth the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggre- 
gate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said 
combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. 

408 



r 



The Civil War 409 

The details for this object will be immediately communicated 
to the State authorities through the War Department. 

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this 
effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of 
our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; 
and to redress wrongs already long enough endured, 

I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the 
forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, 
places, and property which have been seized from the Union ; 
and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently 
with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruc- 
tion of, or interference with property, or any disturbance of 
peaceful citizens in any part of the country. 

And I hereby command the persons composing the com- 
binations aforesaid to disperse, and retire peaceably to their 
respective abodes within twenty days from this date. 

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents 
an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power 
in me vested by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Con- 
gress. Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned 
to assemble at their respective chambers at twelve o'clock, noon, 
on Thursday, the fourth day of July next, then and there to 
consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the 
public safety and interest may seem to demand. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused 

the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, 

|- -.in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 

*- ■ ■-' sixty one, and of the Independence of the United States 

the eighty-fifth. x • , 

Abraham Lincoln 

By the President 

William H. Seward, Secretary of State 

(b) 

Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the 
United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, 
Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, 



4IO The Crisis of Disunion 

and the laws of the United States for the collection of the 
revenue cannot be effectually executed therein conformably to 
that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be 
uniform throughout the United States : 

And whereas a combination of persons, engaged in such insur- 
rection, have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to au- 
thorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, 
and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in 
commerce on the high seas, and in waters of the United States . . . 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 
States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and 
to the protection of the public peace, and the lives and property 
of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, 
until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said 
unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have 
further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the 
ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of 
the United States and of the laws of nations in such case pro- 
vided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as 
to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. 
If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall 
approach, or shall attempt to leave either of the said ports, she 
will be duly warned by the commander of one of the blockading 
vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and date of 
such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to 
enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and 
sent to the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against 
her and her cargo as prize, as may be deemed advisable. 

And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under 
the pretended authority of the said States, or under any other 
pretence, shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the per- 
sons or cargo on board of her, such person will be held amena- 
ble to the laws of the United States for the prevention and 
punishment of piracy. . . . 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused 
the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done . . . this nineteenth day of April etc. . . . 

Abraham Lincoln 



The Civil War 411 

Be it enacted . . . That the Secretary of the Treasury be, 
and he is hereby, authorized to borrow on the credit of the 
United States, within twelve months from the passage of this 
act, a sum not exceeding two hundred and fifty millions of dol- 
lars, or so much thereof as he may deem necessary for the pub- 
lic service, for which he is authorized to issue coupon bonds, or 
registered bonds, or treasury notes, in such proportion of each 
as he may deem advisable ; the bonds to bear .interest not ex- 
ceeding seven per centum per annum, payable semi-annually, 
irredeemable for twenty years, and after that period redeemable 
at the pleasure of the United States ; and the treasury notes to 
be of any denomination fixed by the Secretary of the Treasury, 
not less than fifty dollars, and to be payable three years after 
date, with interest at the rate of seven and three tenths per 
centum per annum,^ payable semi-annually. And the Secretary 
of the Treasury may also issue in exchange for coin, and as 
part of the above loan, or may pay for salaries or other dues 
from the United States, treasury notes of a less denomination 
than fifty dollars, not bearing interest, but payable on demand 
by the Assistant Treasurers of the United States at Philadel- 
phia, New York, or Boston . . . provided that no treasury notes 
shall be issued of a less denomination than ten dollars, and that 
the whole amount of treasury notes, not bearing interest, issued 
under the authority of this act, shall not exceed fifty millions 
of dollars. . . . 

And be it fiuiher enacted, That the Secretary of the Treasury 
may, if he deem it advisable, negotiate any portion of said loan, 
not exceeding one hundred millions of dollars, in any foreign 
country and payable at any designated place either in the United 
States or in Europe. . . . 

And be it further enacted, That the faith of the United States 
is hereby solemnly pledged for the payment of the interest and 
redemption of the principal of the loan authorized by this act. . . . 

Approved, July 17, 1861. 

1 The peculiar figure of 7.3 per cent was adopted for the convenient 
reason that it made the interest on the I50 note exactly a cent a day. 



412 The Crisis of Disunion 

{d) 

Resolved . . . That the present deplorable Civil War has been 
forced upon the country by the disunionists of the southern 
States, now in arms against the constitutional government, and 
in arms around the capital ; that in this national emergency, 
Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, 
will recollect only its duty to the whole country ; that this war 
is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, or for 
any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of over- 
throwing or interfering with the rights or established institutions 
of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of 
the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dig- 
nity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired ; and 
that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought 
to cease. 

(4 

Be if enacted . . . That if, during the present or any future 
insurrection against the Government of the United States, after 
the President of the United States shall have declared, by 
proclamation, that the laws of the United States are opposed, 
and the execution thereof obstructed, by combinations too 
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial 
proceedings, or by the power vested in the marshals by law, 
any person or persons, his, her, or their agent, attorney, or em- 
ploye shall purchase or acquire, sell or give, any property of 
whatsoever kind or description, with intent to use or employ 
the same, or suffer the same to be used or employed, in aiding, 
abetting, or promoting such insurrection or resistance to the laws, 
or any person or persons engaged therein ; or if any person or 
persons, being the owner or owners of any such property, shall 
knowingly use or employ, or consent to the use or employment 
of the same as aforesaid, all such property is hereby declared to 
be lawful subject of prize and capture wherever found ; and it 
shall be the duty of the President of the United States to cause 
the same to be seized, confiscated, and condemned. . . . 

A /id be it further enacted^ That the Attorney-General or any 
district attorney of the United States in which said property may 



TJie Civil War 413 

at the time be, may institute the proceedings of condemnation, 
and in such case they shall be wholly for the benefit of the United 
States; or any person may file an information with such attorney, 
in which case the proceedings shall be for the use of such informer 
and the United States in equal parts. 

And be it fiuiher enacted^ That whenever hereafter, during the 
present insurrection against the Government of the United States, 
any person claimed to be held to labor or service under the law 
of any State, shall be required or permitted by the person to 
whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or by the law- 
ful agent of such person, to take up arms against the United 
States ... or to work or be employed in or upon any fort, navy 
yard, dock, armory, ship, entrenchment, or in any military or 
naval service whatsoever, against the Government and lawful 
authority of the United States, then, and in every such case, the 
person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due shall 
forfeit his claim to such labor, any law of the State or of the 
United States to the contrary notwithstanding. And whenever 
thereafter the person claiming such labor or service shall seek to 
enforce his claim, it shall be a full and sufficient answer to such 
claim that the person whose service or labor is claimed had been 
employed in hostile service against the Government of the United 
States, contrary to the provisions of this act.^ 

Approved, August 6, 1861. 

1 President Lincoln, who was determined at the beginning of the war 
to adhere to his professed poHcy of preserving the Union rather than 
freeing the slaves, and who was consequently very careful not to alienate 
or offend the loyal slaveowners, signed this bill with reluctance. How- 
ever, the actual confiscation of negroes had begun several months before. 
As early as May 24, General B. F. Butler, commanding at Fortress 
Monroe, in Virginia, had refused to deliver up to their owners negro 
slaves who had come into the Union lines. His pretext was that, having 
been employed in the construction of a confederate battery, the negroes 
were " contraband of war," and he forthwith set them to work on the 
Union entrenchments. Later in the year other commanders in the field 
(Fremont, Hunter) took it upon themselves to declare the emancipation 
of the slaves in their districts. 



414 



The Crisis of Disunion 



94. The 
British 
view of the 
Trent affair, 
November- 
December, 
1861 



[442] 



From Bull Run to Gettysburg 

The relations of the Federal government and the court 
of St. James were sorely strained during the Civil War by 
the open sympathies of the governing classes and the in- 
fluential journals of England with the Southern cause, and 
by the remissness of the British ministry in allowing ships 
to be built and launched in English yards for the purpose 
of preying on Northern commerce. President Lincoln's 
proclamation of the blockade of the Southern ports (see 
No. 93 ip), p. 409) was a severe blow to British trade/ and 
threatened to cripple British industry by shutting off the 
supply of raw cotton for her mills.^ The queen's procla- 
mation of neutrality of May 13, 1861, recognized the 
secessionists as belligerents, whereas the administration at 
Washington affected to regard them as traitors — even after 
Bull Run and the beginning of an interchange of prisoners 

1 Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, writing to his home 
government of the proposed blockade, said : " Calhng it an enforcement 
of the Revenue Laws appeared to me to increase the gravity of the 
measure, for it placed the Foreign Powers in the dilemma of recognizing 
the Southern Confederation, or of submitting to the interruption of their 
Commerce." — Lord Newton, Lord Lyons, Vol. I, p. 33. 

2 Punch, the London comic paper, summed up the dilemma between 
ethics and profits thus : 

Though with the North we sympathize, 

It must not be forgotten 
That with the South we 've stronger ties 

Which are composed of cotton, 
Whereof our imports mount unto 

A sum of many figures ; 
And where would be our calico 

Without the toil of niggers ? 

Quoted by Rhodes, History of the United States since 1850, Vol. Ill, 
p. 433. Seward wrote to his wife. May 17, 1861 : "Great Britain is in 
great danger of sympathizing so much with the South, for the sake of 
peace and cotton, as to drive us to make war against her as the ally of 
the traitors." — Frederick Bancroft, Life of Seward, Vol. II, p. 575. 



I 



The Civil War 415 

of war.^ So the forcible removal of Messrs. Mason and 
Slidell from the British steamer Trent, applauded en- 
thusiastically by the majority of the President's cabinet, 
the members of Congress, and the general public of the 
North, appeared to the British government as the last act 
in a policy of deliberate infraction of their neutral rights. 
The people of England were aflame with indignation.^ 
Eight thousand troops were dispatched to Canada, and 
war between the United States and England seemed immi- 
nent as the Christmas season of 1861 approached. Lord 
Lyons, the British minister at Washington, wrote to his 
chief. Lord John Russell, foreign minister in Lord 
Palmerston's cabinet : 

Washington, Nov. 22, 1861 

I have all along been expecting some such blow as the cap- 
ture on board the Trent. Turn out how it may, it must I fear 
produce an effect on public opinion in both countries which will 
go far to disconcert all my peaceful plans and hopes. I am so 
worn out with the never-ending labor of keeping things smooth, 
under the discouragement of the doubt whether by so doing I 
am not after all only leading these people to believe that they 
may go all lengths with us with impunity that I am sometimes 

1 Even as late as the autumn of 1861 Seward maintained that any 
communication between a foreign government and the Confederate 
government at Richmond was an offense to the United States (Lord 
Newton, Lord Lyons, Vol.- 1, p. 53). As there was no government but 
the Confederate below Mason and Dixon's line, this meant that England 
and other foreign nations were to have no tribunal to which to appeal 
to safeguard the lives and property of their citizens living in eleven 
great states of the South. 

2 An American living in London wrote to Mr. Seward two days after 
the arrival of the news of the Trent episode (November 29) : " There never 
was within memory such a burst of feeling as has been created by the 
news of the boarding of the \Treitt\. The people are frantic with rage, 
and were the country polled, I fear that 999 men out of a thousand would 
declare for immediate war. Lord Palmerston cannot resist the impulse 
if he would." — War Records, Series II, Vol. II, p. 1107. 



k 



4i6 The Crisis of Disunion 

half tempted to wish that the worst may have come already. 
However, I do not allow this feeling to influence my conduct, 
and I have done nothing which can in the least interfere with 
any course which you may take concerning the affair of the Trent. 

If the effect on the people and Government of this country 
were the only thing to be considered, it would be a case for an 
extreme measure one way or the other. If the capture be 
unjustifiable we should ask for the immediate release of the 
prisoners, promptly, imperatively, with a. determination to act at 
once, if the demand were refused. If, on the other hand, the 
capture be justifiable, we should at once say so, and declare that 
we have no complaint to make on the subject. Even so, we 
should not escape the evil of encouraging the Americans in the 
belief that we shall bear anything from them. For they have 
made up their minds that they have insulted us, although the 
fear of the consequences prevents their giving vent to their ex- 
ultation. . . . While maintaining entire reserve on the question 
itself, I have avoided any demonstration of ill-humor. My object 
has been, on the one hand, not to prevent the Government being 
led by its present apprehensions to take some conciliatory step, 
and on the other hand, not to put H.[er] M.[ajesty's] Govern- 
ment or myself in an awkward position, if it should after all 
appear that we should not be right to make the affair a serious 
ground of complaint. 

Congress will meet on December 2"'', which will not diminish 
the difficulty of managing matters here. It is supposed that 
General M'^Clellan will be obliged to attempt some forward 
movement, in order that he and the Government [cabinet] 
may be able to meet the fiery legislators. . . . 

On November 27th news of the boarding of the Trent 
reached England, and on the 30th the British cabinet 
drew up a dispatch declaring that the neutral rights of 
Great Britain had been violated, demanding that the act 
be disavowed and the prisoners set free, and instructing 
Lord Lyons to leave Washington should the government 
refuse to comply with these demands. When the dispatch 



The Civil War 417 

was submitted to the queen and her royal consort, Prince 
Albert, the latter (then on his deathbed) suggested several 
modifications and mitigations of its peremptory tone, such 
as the omission of the phrase '' wanton insult " and of the 
imperative mood and the threat to terminate diplomatic 
relations. The revised draft read, in its important parts : 

. . . Her Majesty's Government, bearing in mind the friendly 
relations which have long subsisted between Great Britain and 
the United States, are willing to believe that the United States's 
naval officer who committed this aggression was not acting in 
compliance with any authority from his Government, or that if 
he conceived himself to be so authorized, he greatly misunder- 
stood the instructions which he had received. 

For the Government of the United States must be fully aware 
that the British Government could not allow such an affront 
to the national honour to pass without full reparation, and her 
Majesty's Government are unwilling to believe that it could be 
the deliberate intention of the Government of the United States 
unnecessarily to force into discussion between the two Govern- 
ments a question of so grave a character, and with regard to 
which the whole British nation would be sure to entertain such 
unanimity of feeling. 

Her Majesty's Government, therefore, trust that when this 
matter shall have been brought under the consideration of the 
Government of the United States, that Government will, of its 
own accord, offer to the British Government such redress as 
alone would satisfy the British nation, namely, the liberation of 
the four gentlemen, and their delivery to your Lordship, in order 
that they may again be placed under British protection, and a 
suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed. 

Should these terms not be offered by Mr. Seward, you will 
propose them to him. 

I John Bright, the distinguished liberal statesman, and 
member of parliament from Rochdale, near Manchester, 



4i8 The Crisis of Disunion 

constant and ardent friend of the North in the httle group 
of Union sympathizers among the pubhc men of England. 
He was a regular correspondent of Charles Sumner, chair- 
man of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations/ to 
whom he wrote in the Trent crisis as follows : 

Reform Club, London, Nov. 29, 1861 
Dear Mr. Sumner, — 

I am here for a few days, where some excitement is caused 
by recent incidents growing out of your unhappy troubles. . . . 
The Southern Commissioners have been taken from an English 
ship. This has made a great sensation here, and the ignorant 
and passionate, and '^ Rul^ Britannia " class are angry and 
insolent as usual. ^ 

1 Bright's letters were read to Lincoln and Seward, and sometimes 
to the whole cabinet in regular session. After Lincoln's death Bright 
wrote in his diary : " I have had no direct communication from the late 
President, but my letters to Mr. Charles Sumner, as well as those from 
Mr. Cobden, were frequently read by him, and he sent me, through Mr. 
Sumner, in his own handwriting, a draft resolution which he suggested 
as likely to be useful if adopted at public meetings held in this country 
in favor of the North. It referred to the question of slavery, and the 
impossibility of our recognizing a new state based on the foundation of 
human bondage." — G. M. Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, p- 303 (with 
half-tone facsimile of Lincoln's autograph draft). 

2 An example of the " Rule Britannia " insolence appeared in the 
Morning Chronicle the day before Mr. Bright wrote. " Abraham Lin- 
coln," said the editorial, " whose accession to power was generally wel- 
comed on this side of the Atlantic, has proved himself a feeble, confused, 
and little-minded mediocrity ; Mr. Seward, the firebrand at his elbow, 
is exerting himself to provoke a quarrel with all Europe, in that spirit 
of senseless egotism, which induces the Americans, with their dwarf 
fleet and shapeless mass of incoherent squads, which they call an army, 
to fancy themselves the equals of France by land, and of Great Britain 
by sea. If the Federal States could be rid of these two mischief-makers, 
it might yet redeem itself in the sight of the world ; but while they 
stagger on at the head of affairs, their only chance of fame consists in 
the probability that the navies of England will blow out of the water 
their blockading squadrons, and teach them how to respect the flag of 
a mightier supremacy beyond the Atlantic." — Quoted in Massachusetts 
Historical Society Proceedings, 1911-1912, Vol. XLV, p. 147. 



The Civil War 419 

The Ministers meet at this moment on the case. The law 
officers say that your war steamer might have taken the despatches 
or the ship itself into one of your ports for adjudication ; but 
that to take the Commissioners was unlawful, inasmuch as it is 
not permitted for an officer of a ship of war finally to decide 
on the right of capture. That duty belongs to a regularly con- 
stituted Court. In fact you have done too little or too much. 
Had you taken the ship, the law would not have been broken ; 
but having taken only the men you are in the wrong. . . . 

I hope our Government will take a moderate and forbearing 
course, and that yours will do the same. I am sure you will do 
what you can to smooth any irritation which may exist with you, 
and you have great power. 

I may learn something more this way, for I shall probably 
see some Minister later in the day, and I am to dine with Mr. 
Adams [United States minister to England] at seven o'clock. . . . 
I hope to do some service for both countries on Wednesday 
next. ... 

There is a feeling among our Ministers that Mr. Seward is 
not so friendly in his transactions with them as they could wish. 
I hope this is not so. . . . 

Rochdale, December 5, 1861 
Dear Mr. Sumner, — 

The excitement here has been and is great, and it is fed, as 
usual, by newspapers whose writers seem to imagine a cause of 
war discovered to be something like " treasure trove." I am not 
informed of the nature of the dispatch of our Government beyond 
what appears in our Papers, and I know not how far its tone 
is moderate or otherwise. ... If I were Minister or President 
in your country, I would write the most complete answer the 
case is capable of, and in a friendly and courteous tone, send 
it to this country. I would say that if after this, your view of 
the case is not accepted, you are ready to refer the matter to 
any Sovereign, or two Sovereigns, or Governments of Europe, 
or to any other eligible tribunal, and to abide by the decision. . . . 

I think you may do this with perfect honor, and you would 
make it impossible for the people of England to support our 
Government in any hostile steps against you. In fact, I think 



420 The Crisis of Disuinoit 

a course so moderate and just would bring over to your side a 
large amount of opinion here that has been poisoned and misled 
by the Times and other journals since your troubles began. . . . 

I need not tell you, who are much better acquainted with mod- 
em history than I am, that Nations drift into wars, as we drifted 
into the late war with Russia [1854] often thro' the want of a reso- 
lute hand at some moment early in the quarrel. So now, a coura- 
geous stroke, not of arms but of moral action, may save you and us. 
I suppose the act of Captain Wilkes was not directly authorized 
by your Government ; if so, the difficulty will be smaller. . . . 

It is common here to say that your Government cannot resist 
the mob violence with which it is surrounded. I do not believe 
this. . . . Your Congress is just meeting, and your Foreign 
Relations Committee and your Senate will have this matter in 
hand. If you deal with it so wisely as to put our Government 
in the wrong in the sight of all moderate men here, you will not 
only avoid the perils now menacing, but you will secure an amount 
of friendly sympathy here which hitherto unhappily has not been 
given you. . . . Don't allow te??iper in any of your statesmen to 
turn his judgment. Without foreign war I look to the restora- 
tion of your Union. Give no advantage to the enemies of your 
Republic here, and you will be all right again by and bye. . . . 

Rochdale, December 7, 1861 
Dear Mr. Sumner — 

I write a few lines more for the steamer at Cork tomorrow. 
There is more calmness here in the public mind . . . but I fear 
the military and naval demonstrations of our Government point 
to trouble, and I am not sure that it would grieve certain parties 
here if any decent excuse could be found for a quarrel with you. 
You know the instinct of aristocracy and of powerful militar)^ 
services, and an ignorant people is easily led astray on questions 
foreign to their usual modes of thought. . . . 

At all hazards you must not let this matter grow to a war 
with England, even if you are right and we are wrong. War 
will be fatal to your idea of restoring the Union and we know 
not what may survive its evil influences. I am not now con- 
sidering its effects here — they may be serious enough, but I 



The Civil War 421 

am looking alone to your great country, the hope of freedona 
and humanity, and I implore you not on any feeling that nothing 
can be conceded,- and that England is arrogant and seeking a 
quarrel, to play the game of every enemy of your country. 
Nations in great crises and difficulties have often done that 
which in their prosperous and powerful hour they would not 
have done, and they have done it without humiliation or dis- 
grace. You may disappoint your enemies by the moderation 
and reasonableness of your conduct, and every honest and 
good man in England will applaud your wisdom. Put all the 
fire-eaters in the wrong, and Europe will admire the sagacity of 
your Government. 

Rochdale, January 11, 1862 
Dear Mr. Sumner, 

Your letter of the 23^^ ult. reached me on the 7"' of this 
month. It showed such evidences of anxiety on your part that 
it made me intensely anxious, and I was not prepared for the 
tidings of the following day, which announced the settlement of 
the question which was the main cause of immediate danger.-^ 
I need not tell you how much I rejoice, or how much I admire 
the dignity and tact with which the matter has been dealt with 
in the despatch of your Government. The war-mongers here 
are baffled for the time, and I cannot but believe that a more 
healthy opinion is gradually extending itself on all matters con- 
nected with your great struggle. 

Sarah Morgan Dav^^son v^as the daughter of Thomas G. 95. Pen 
Morgan, a district judge of Louisiana. She v^as a girl in t^fwar ° 
her late teens when the war broke out, and she kept a diary ^445^ 451^ 
of the eventful days from March 9, 1862, to the end of the ^^^\ 

1 The dispatch of the British government (see p. 417) was pre- 
sented by Lord Lyons to Seward on December 19. Eight days later 
Seward's reply was received at the British embassy. It was a long and 
labored document, but the gist of it was in these few lines : " The four 
persons in question [Mason and Slidell, and their secretaries] are now 
held in military custody at Fort Warren in the State of Massachusetts. 
They will be cheerfully liberated. Your Lordship will please indicate a 
time and place for receiving them." — Senate Executive Documents, 
37th Congress, 2d session, Vol. IV, No. 8, p. 13. 



422 The Crisis of Distmion 

war. On her death a few years ago at Versailles, France, 
her son Warrington Dawson published the diary (191 3). 
The passages here taken from it illustrate the proud spirit 
of the Southern women and the trials to which they were 
subjected in the invasion of their homes. 

April 26, 1862 
There is no word in the English language that can express 
the state in which we are and have been these last three days.- 
Day before yesterday news came early in the morning of three 
of the enemy's boats passing the Forts,-^ and then the excite- 
ment began. It increased rapidly on hearing of the sinking of 
eight of our gunboats in the engagement, the capture of the 
Forts, and last night of the burning of the wharves and cotton 
in the city while the Yankees were taking possession. . . . We 
went this a.m. to see the cotton burning — a sight never before 
witnessed, and probably never again to be seen. Wagons, drays, 
everything that could be driven or rolled, were loaded with the 
bales and taken a few squares back to be burned on the common. 
Negroes were running around, cutting them open, piling them 
up, and setting them afire. All were as busy as though their 
salvation depended on disappointing the Yankees. Later Charles 
sent for us to come to the river and see him fire a flat-boat 
loaded with the precious material for which the Yankees are 
risking their bodies and souls. . . . The flat-boat was piled with 
as many bales as it could hold without sinking. Most of them 
were cut open, while negroes stove in the heads of barrels of 
alcohol, whiskey, etc. and dashed bucketsful over the cotton. . . . 
The cotton floated down the Mississippi one sheet of living flame, 
even in the sunlight. An incredible amount of property has 
been destroyed today, but no one begrudges it. . . . 

1 This refers to Farragut's exploit in running past the forts of Jack- 
son and St. Philip below New Orleans, April 23, 1862 (see Muzzey, An 
American History, p. 446). The capture of the forts left New Orleans 
and the river above, as far as Port Hudson, open to Federal attack. 
Baton Rouge, the home of the Morgans, lay in this region, some eighty 
miles north of New Orleans. 



The Civil War 423 

May 9 

Our lawful (?) owners have arrived at last. About sunset day 
before yesterday, the Iroquois anchored here and a graceful 
young Federal stepped ashore carrying a Yankee flag over his 
shoulder, and asked the way to the Mayor's office. I like the 
style ! If we girls of Baton Rouge had been at the landing in- 
stead of the men, that Yankee would never have insulted us by 
flying his flag in our faces ! We would have opposed his land- 
ing except under a flag of truce ; but the men let him alone, 
and he even found a poor Dutchman willing to show him the 
road. . . . Last evening came the demand : the town must be 
surrendered immediately ; the Federal flag must be raised ; they 
would grant the same terms they granted New Orleans. Jolly 
terms those were ! . . . This morning they are landing at the 
Garrison. . . . ^' All devices, signs, flags of the Confederacy 
shall be suppressed." So says Picayune Butler. Good ! I de- 
vote all my red, white, and blue silk to the manufacture of Con- 
federate flags. As soon as one is confiscated I make another, 
until my ribbon is exhausted, when I will sport a duster em- 
blazoned in high colors : '' Hurra ! for the bonny blue flag ! " 
Henceforth I wear one pinned to my bosom ; the man who says 
take it off will have to pull it off for himself ; the man who dares 
attempt it — well ! a pistol in my pocket fills up the gap. I am 
capable too. . . . 

May 17 

Four days ago the Yankees left us, to attack Vicksburg, leav- 
ing their flag flying in the Garrison without a man to guard it, 
and with the understanding that the town would be held re- 
sponsible for it. It was intended for a trap ; and it succeeded. 
For night before last it was torn down and pulled to pieces. . . . 

Now they will be back in a few days and will execute their 
threat of shelling the town. . . . They say the women and chil- 
dren must be removed, these guerillas. Where, please ? Charlie 
says we must go up to Greenwell. And have the house pillaged ? 
For Butler has decreed that no unoccupied house shall be 
respected. 



424 The Crisis of Disunion 

May 27 

The cry is '' Ho ! for Greenwell." We are hourly expecting 
two regiments of Yankees to occupy the Garrison, and some 
1500 of our men are awaiting them a little way off, so the fight 
seems inevitable. . . . O, my dear Home ! How can I help but 
cry at leaving you forever ? For if this fight occurs, never again 
shall I pass the threshold of this house where we have been so 
happy and so sad. . . . 

May 30. Greenwell 

After all our trials and tribulations, here we are at last, and 
no limbs lost! Wednesday the 28'^ — a day to be forever re- 
membered — I was packing up my traveling desk when I heard 
Lilly's voice downstairs, crying as she ran in — -she had been 
out shopping — '^ Mr. Castle has killed a Federal officer on a 
ship, and they are going to shell" — Bang! went a cannon at 
the word, and that was all our warning. 

Mother had just come in and was lying down, but sprang to 
her feet and added her screams to the general confusion. . . . 
The firing continued ; they must have fired a half a dozen times 
before we could coax mother off. ... I heard Miriam plead, 
argue, insist, command her to run. ... As we stood in the 
door, four or five shells sailed over our heads at the same time, 
seeming to make a perfect corkscrew of the air — for it sounded 
as though it went in circles. ... I stayed to lock the door with 
this new music in my ears. We reached the back gate that was 
on the street when another shell passed us, and Miriam jumped 
behind the fence for protection. We had gone only half a square 
when Dr. Casdeton begged us to take another street, as they 
were firing up that one. We took his advice, but found our new 
street worse than the old, for the shells seemed to whistle their 
strange songs with redoubled vigor. The height of my ambition 
was now attained. I had heard Jimmy laugh about the singular 
sensation produced by the rifle balls spinning around one's head ; 
and here I heard the same peculiar sound, ran the same risk, 
and was equal to the rest of the boys ; for was not I in the 
midst of flying shells, in the middle of a bombardment ? I think 
I was rather proud of it. . . . 



The Civil War 425 

Three miles from the town we began to overtake the fugi- 
tives. Hundreds of women and children were walking along, 
some bareheaded and all in costumes. Little girls of twelve or 
fourteen were wandering on alone. I called to one I knew, and 
asked her where her mother was : she did n't know ; she would 
walk on till she found out. . . . White and black were all mixed 
together, and were as confidential as though related. 

It was a heart-rending scene. Women searching for their 
babies along the road where they had been lost ; others sitting 
in the dust crying and wringing their hands ; for by this time 
we had not an idea but what Baton Rouge was either in ashes 
or being plundered, and we had saved nothing. . , . 

Clinton, Jan. 4, 1863 
One just from Baton Rouge tells us that my presentiment 
about our house is verified : Yankees do inhabit it, a Yankee 
colonel and his wife. . . . And a stranger and a Yankee occupies 
our father's place at the table where he presided for thirty-one 
years. And the old lamp that lighted up so many eager, laughing 
faces around the dear old table night after night — the old lamp 
has passed into the hands of strangers who neither know nor 
care for its history. 

The following account of Pickett's charge is from 
Lieutenant General James Longstreet, who was intrusted 
by General Lee with the command of the assaulting 
column on the third and last day of the great fight at 
Gettysburg. 

The plan of assault was as follows : Our artillery was to be 
massed in a wood from which Pickett was to charge, and it was 
to pour a continuous fire on the cemetery. Under cover of this 
fire, and supported by it, Pickett was to charge. General E. P. 
Alexander . . . was given charge of the artillery. The arrange- 
ments were completed about one o'clock. General Alexander 
had arranged that a battery of seven 11 -pound howitzers with 
fresh horses and full caissons, were to charge with Pickett at 
the head of his line, but General Pendleton, from whom the guns 



426 The Crisis of Disunion 

had been borrowed, recalled them just before the charge was 
made, and thus deranged this wise plan. 

Never was I so depressed as on that day. I felt that my men 
were to be sacrificed, and that I should have to order them to 
make a hopeless charge. I had instructed General Alexander, 
being unwilling to trust myself with the entire responsibility, to 
carefully observe the effect of the fire on the enemy, and when 
it began to tell to notify Pickett to begin the assault. I was so 
much impressed with the hopelessness of the charge that I wrote 
the following note to General Alexander : *' If the artillery fire 
does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or greatly de- 
moralize him, so as to make our efforts pretty certain, I would 
prefer that you should not advise General Pickett to make the 
charge. I shall rely a great deal on your judgment to deter- 
mine the matter, and shall expect you to let Pickett know when 
the moment offers." 

To my note the general replied as follows : ''I will only be 
able to judge the effect of our fire upon the enemy by his return 
fire, for his infantry is but little exposed to view, and the smoke 
will obscure the whole field. If, as I infer from your note, there 
is an alternative to this attack, it should be carefully considered 
before opening our fire, for it will take all the artillery ammu- 
nition we have left to test this one thoroughly, and if the result 
is unfavorable, we will have none left for another effort, and 
even if this is entirely successful it can only be so at a very 
bloody cost." 

I still desired to save my men, and felt that if the artillery did 
not produce the desired effect I would be justified in holding 
Pickett off. I wrote this note to Colonel Walton at exactly 
1.30 P.M. : '' Let the batteries open. Order great precision in 
firing. If the batteries at the peach-orchard cannot be used 
against the point we intend attacking, let them open on the 
enemy at Rocky Hill." 

The cannonading which opened along both lines was grand. 
In a few moments a courier brought a note to General Pickett 
(who was standing near me) from Alexander, which, after 
reading, he handed to me. It was as follows : " If you are 
coming at all you must come at once, or I cannot give you 



The Civil War 427 

proper support ; but the enemy's fire has not slackened at all ; 
at least eighteen guns are still firing from the cemetery itself." 

After I had read the note Pickett said to me, '' General, shall 
I advance? " My feelings had so overcome me that I would not 
speak for fear of betraying my want of confidence to him. I 
bowed affirmation and turned to mount my horse. Pickett 
immediately said : '' I shall lead my division forward, sir." I 
spurred my horse to the wood where Alexander was stationed 
with artillery. When I reached him he told me of the disap- 
pearance of the seven guns which were to have led the charge 
with Pickett, and that his ammunition was so low that he could 
not properly support the charge. I at once ordered him to stop 
Pickett until the ammunition had been replenished. He in- 
formed me that he had no ammunition with which to replenish. 
I then saw that there was no help for it, and that Pickett must 
advance under his orders. 

He swept past our artillery in splendid style and the men 
marched steadily and compactly dowm the slope. As they started 
up the ridge over one hundred cannon from the breastworks of 
the Federals hurled a rain of cannister, grape, and shell dovm 
upon them. They still pressed on until half-way up the slope, 
when the crest of the hill was lit with a solid sheet of flame as 
the masses of infantry rose and fired. When the smoke cleared 
away Pickett's division was gone. Nearly two-thirds of his men 
lay dead on the field, and the survivors were sullenly retreating 
down the hill. Mortal man could not have stood that fire. In 
half an hour the contested field was cleared, and the battle of 
Gettysburg was over. 

John S. Wise, the son of Brigadier General Governor 
Henry A, Wise of Virginia, was fourteen years old when 
the war broke out. By dint of much begging he got his 
father's consent to enter the Virginia Military Institute at 
Lexington (''the West Point of the Confederacy"), and 
in June, 1864, he joined his father's brigade at Petersburg. 
Thirty-five years later he wrote of his experiences with 
the defenders of Richmond. 



428 The Crisis of Disunion 

Much of the month of July we passed in the trenches. 
Father was in command at Petersburg, and Colonel J. T. Goode 
commanded the brigade. . . . Our left was about a hundred 
yards south of a bastion known as Elliott's salient. 

Life in the trenches was indescribably monotonous and 
uncomfortable. In time of sunshine the reflected heat from the 
new red-clay embankments was intense, and unrelieved by shade 
or breeze; and in wet weather one was ankle-deep in tough, cling- 
ing mud. The incessant shelling and picket-firing made extreme 
caution necessary in moving about ; and each day, almost each 
hour, added to the list of casualties. The opposing lines were 
not over two hundred yards apart, and the distance between the 
rifle pits was about one hundred yards. Both sides had attained 
accurate marksmanship, which they practised with merciless 
activity in picking off men. . . , 

The men resorted to many expedients to secure some degree 
of comfort and protection. They learned to burrow like conies. 
Into the sides of the trenches and transverses they went with 
bayonet and tin cups to secure shade and protection from rain. 
Soon, such was their proficiency that, at sultry midday or dur- 
ing a rainfall, one might look up or down the trenches without 
seeing anybody but the sentinel. At the sound of the drum, the 
heads of the soldiers would pop up and out of the earth, as if 
they had been prairie-dogs or gophers. Still many lives were 
lost by the indifference to danger which is begotten by living 
constantly in its presence. . . . 

A man, because he had not been hit, would soon come to 
regard himself as invulnerable. The fact that his comrades had 
been killed or wounded appeared to make little impression upon 
him. Past immunity had made him so confident that he would 
walk coolly over the same exposed ground where somebody 
else had been shot the day before. The " spat," " whiz," '' zip," 
of hostile bullets would not even make him quicken his pace. 
Mayhap he would take his short pipe out of his mouth and yell 
defiantly, " Ah-h — Yank — yer — kain't — shoot," and go on his 
way tempting fate, until a bullet struck him and he was dead 
or maimed for life. . . . 



The Civil War 429 

When our troops first manned the lines, the things most 
dreaded were the great mortar shells. They were particularly- 
terrible at night. Their parabolas through the air were watched 
with intense apprehension, and their explosion seemed to threaten 
annihilation. Within a week they had ceased to occasion any 
other feeling among the men than a desire to secure their frag- 
ments. There was little chance of a shell's falling upon the men, 
for they could see it and get out of the way. Unless it did 
actually strike some one in its descent, the earth was so tun- 
nelled and pitted that it was apt to fall into some depression, 
where its fragments would be stopped and rendered harmless 
by surrounding walls of dirt. Iron was becoming scarce. As 
inducement to collecting scrap-iron for our cannon foundries, 
furloughs were offered, a day for so many pounds collected. 
Thus, gathering fragments of shell became an active industry 
among the troops. So keen was their quest that sometimes 
they would start towards the point where a mortar-shell fell 
even before it exploded. 

Such was life in the trenches before Petersburg. Looking 
back at it now, one wonders that everybody was not killed, or 
did not die from exposure. But, at the time, no man there per- 
sonally expected to be killed, and there was something — nobody 
can define what it was — which made the experience by no 
means so horrible as it now seems. . . . 

About day-break, July 30, the mine was exploded. ... It 
consisted of a shaft 5 1 o f t. long, with lateral galleries under our 
works 38 and 37 feet long respectively; in these, 320 kegs of 
powder, containing 25 pounds each — in all 8000 pounds — 
were placed, and preliminary to the explosion, 81 heavy guns 
and mortars and over 80 light guns of the Union army were 
brought to bear on the position to be mined and attacked. . . . 
The fuse of the mine was lighted about 3.30 a.m. The ragged 
remnant of the Confederate army still left before Petersburg 
enjoyed unusual repose that night, for the firing along the lines 
had almost ceased. A long delay ensued. After waiting for 
more than an hour for the explosion, two Union soldiers, at the 
risk of their lives, crawled into the gallery of the mine and found 



\ 



430 



TJie Crisis of Disimion 



the fuse had failed ; they relit it and returned. . . . the Confed- 
erate infantrymen and cannoneers at the doomed salient slept 
on, as the fuse sparkled and sputtered inch by inch towards the 
four tons of gunpowder which were to rend with the violence 
of an earthquake the spot on which they were resting. 

" There she goes ! " exclaimed one of the watchers. The 
ground trembled for an instant ; an immense mass of earth, 
cannon, timbers, human beings, and smoke shot skyward, paused 
for an instant in mid-air, illumined by the flash of the explosion ; 
and, bursting asunder, fell back into and around the smoking 
pit. The dense cloud of smoke drifted off, tinged by the first 
faint rays of sun-rise ; a silence like that of death succeeded the 
tremendous report. Nearly 300 Confederates were buried in 
the debris of the crater ; their comrades on either side adjacent 
to the fatal spot fled from a sight so much resembling the day 
of judgment. ... At least 300 yards of our lines were deserted 
by their defenders, and left at the mercy of the assaulting col- 
umns. Beyond that breach not a Confederate infantryman 
stood to dispute their passage into the heart of Petersburg. 
A prompt advance in force, a gallant dash, not into the crater, 
but around it and 300 yards beyond it, would have crowned the 
great explosion with a victory worthy of its grandeur. From 
the eminence where Blandford Church and cemetery stood, in 
the rear of the mine, Grant's forces might, within ten minutes 
after the mine was sprung, have looked backward upon the 
Confederates, stunned, paralyzed, and separated ; and, looking 
forward, they might have seen the coveted city [Richmond] 
undefended and at their mercy. 



The Triumph of the North 

96. Change The difference in tone between the two following 
tunes orthe extracts from the messages of Jefferson Davis shows 
the effect of the Union victories of the summer and 



Confederacy, 
April-Decem- 
ber, 1863 

[452] 



autumn of 1863 (Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga) on 
the confidence of the South. The first extract is from 
an address '' to the People of the Confederate States," on 



The Civil War 431 

April 10, 1863, urging them to comply with a resolu- 
tion of the Confederate Congress that they should cease 
planting tobacco and cotton in anticipation of an early 
termination of the war, and devote their land to food 
crops. The second is from President Davis's message of 
December 7, 1863, to the Confederate Congress. 

(a) 

. . . We have reached the close of the second year of the 
war, and may point with just pride to the history of our young 
Confederacy. Alone, unaided, we have met and overthrown the 
most formidable combination of naval and military armaments 
that the lust of conquest ever gathered together for the subju- 
gation of a free people. We began this struggle without a single 
gun afloat, while the resources of our enemy enabled them to 
gather fleets which, according to their official list published in 
August last, consisted of 427 vessels, measuring 340,036 tons, 
and carrying 3,268 guns. Yet we have captured, sunk, or 
destroyed a number of these vessels. ... To oppose invad- 
ing forces composed of levies which have already exceeded 
1,300,000 men, we had no resources but the unconquerable 
valor of a people determined to be free, and we were so desti- 
tute of military supplies that tens of thousands of our citizens 
were reluctantly refused admission into the service from our in- 
ability to provide them with arms, while for many months some 
of our important strongholds owed their safety chiefly to a care- 
ful concealment of the fact that we were without a supply of 
powder for our cannon. Your devotion and patriotism have 
triumphed over all these obstacles and called into existence the 
munitions of war, the clothing, and the subsistence which have 
enabled our soldiers to illustrate their valor on numerous battle- 
fields, and to inflict crushing defeats on successive armies, each 
of which an arrogant foe fondly believed to be invincible. 

The contrast between our past and present condition is well 
calculated to inspire full confidence in the triumph of our arms. 
At no previous period of the war have our forces been so 
numerous, so well-organized, so thoroughly disciplined, armed, 



432 TJie Crisis of Disunion 

and equipped as at present. The season of high water, on 
which our enemies relied to enable their fleets of gunboats to 
penetrate into our country and devastate our homes, is fast 
passing away ; yet our strongholds on the Mississippi still bid 
defiance to the foe,^ and months of costly preparations for their 
reduction have been spent in vain. Disaster has been the result 
of their every effort to turn or to storm Vicksburg and Port 
Hudson. . . . Within a few weeks the falling waters and the 
increasing heat of summer will complete their discomfiture and 
compel their baffled and defeated forces to the abandonment of 
expeditions on which was based their chief hope of success in 
effecting our subjugation. We must not forget, however, that 
the war is not yet ended, and that we are still confronted by 
powerful armies and threatened by numerous fleets ; and that 
the Government which controls these fleets and armies is driven 
to the most desperate efforts to effect the unholy purposes in 
which it has been thus far defeated. It will use its utmost 
energy to arrest the impending doom, so fully merited by the 
atrocities it has committed, the savage barbarities which it has 
encouraged, and the crowning infamy of its attempt to excite a 
servile population to the massacre of our wives, our daughters, 
and our helpless children. . . . 

Your country, therefore, appeals to you to lay aside all 
thought of gain, and to devote yourselves to securing your 
liberties, without which those gains would be valueless. . . . 

Let us all unite in the performance of our duty, each in his 
sphere, and with concerted, persistent, and well-directed effort 
there seems litde reason to doubt that ... we shall maintain the 
sovereignty and independence of these Confederate States, and 
transmit to our posterity the heritage bequeathed to us by our 
fathers. Jefferson Davis 

Executive Office, Richmond 
April lo, 1863. 

^ President Davis refers to the two strongholds of Vicksburg and 
Port Hudson on the Mississippi that were left to the Confederates after 
Grant and Foote from the North and Farragut from the South had won 
back all but about one hundred and twenty-five miles of the river for 
the Union. 



The Civil War 433 

Richmond Va. Dec. 7, 1863 
To THE Senate and House of Representatives of the 
Confederate States : 

The necessity for legislative action arising out of the impor- 
tant events that have marked the interval since your adjourn- 
ment, and my desire to have the aid of your counsel on other 
matters of grave public interest, render your presence at this 
time more than ordinarily welcome. . . . 

Grave reverses befell our arms soon after your departure 
from Richmond. Early in June [July] our strongholds at Vicks- 
burg and Port Hudson, together with their entire garrisons, 
capitulated to the combined land and naval forces of the enemy. 
The important interior position of Jackson next fell into their 
temporary possession. Our unsuccessful assault upon the post at 
Helena was followed at a later period by the invasion of Arkan- 
sas, and the retreat of our army from Little Rock gave to the 
enemy the control of the important valley in which it is situated. 

The resolute spirit of the people soon rose superior to the 
temporary despondency naturally resulting from these reverses. 
The gallant troops, so ably commanded in the States beyond the 
Mississippi, inflicted repeated defeats on the invading armies in 
Louisiana and on the coast of Texas. Detachments of troops 
and active bodies of partisans kept up so effective a war on the 
Mississippi River as practically to destroy its value as an avenue 
of commerce. . . . 

The able commander [Lee] who conducted the campaign in 
Virginia determined to meet the threatened advance on Rich- 
mond, for which the enemy had made long and costly prepara- 
tions, by forcing their armies to cross the Potomac and fight in 
defence of their own capital and homes. Transferring the batde- 
field to their own soil, he succeeded in compelling their rapid 
retreat from Virginia, and in the hard-fought battle of Gettys- 
burg inflicted such severity of punishment as disabled them 
from an early renewal of the campaign as originally projected.^ 

1 The disappointment of Lincoln and the war office in Washington 
over Meade's failure to follow up his defeat of Lee at Gettysburg was 



434 The Crisis of Disunion 

Unfortunately the communications on which our general relied 
for receiving his supplies of munitions were so interrupted by 
extraordinary floods, which so swelled the Potomac as to render 
impassable the fords by which his advance had been made, and 
he was thus forced to a withdrawal, which was conducted with 
deliberation after securing large trains of captured supplies, and 
with constant and unaccepted tender of battle. . . . 

The hope last year entertained of an early termination of the 
war has not been realized. Could carnage have satisfied the 
appetite of our enemy for the destruction of human life, or grief 
have appeased their wanton desire to inflict human suffering, 
there has been bloodshed enough on both sides, and two lands 
have been sufficiently darkened by the weeds of mourning to 
induce a disposition for peace. 

If unanimity in a people could dispel delusion, it has been 
displayed too unmistakably not to have silenced the pretense 
that the Southern States were merely disturbed by a factious 
insurrection, and it must have long since been admitted that they 
were but exercising their reserved right to modify their own 
Government in such manner as would best secure their own 
happiness. But these considerations have been powerless to allay 
the unchristian hate of those who, long accustomed to draw large 
profits from a union with us, cannot control the rage excited by 
the conviction that they have by their own folly destroyed the 
richest sources of their prosperity. They refuse even to listen 
to proposals for the only peace possible between us — a peace 
which, recognizing the impassable gulf which divides us, may 
leave the two peoples separately to recover from injuries inflicted 

intense. On reading Meade's remark after the victory, of " driving the 
invader from our soil," Lincoln said with impatience : " Will our generals 
never get that idea out of their heads ? The whole country is our soil." 
— Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VII, pp. 278-281. On 
July 14 Lincoln wrote to Meade (but never signed or sent the letter) : 
" I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune 
involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have 
closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, 
have ended the war. As it is the war will be prolonged indefinitely. . . . 
Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably 
because of it." 



The Civil War 435 

on both by the causeless war now waged against us. Having 
begun the war in direct violation of their Constitution, which 
forbade the attempt to coerce a State, they have been hardened 
by crime until they no longer attempt to veil their purpose to 
destroy the institutions and subvert the sovereignty and inde- 
pendence of these States. We now know that the only reliable 
hope for peace is in the vigor of our resistance, while the cessa- 
tion of their hostility is only to be expected from the pressure 
of their necessities. 

The patriotism of the people has proved equal to every 
sacrifice demanded by their country's need. We have been 
united as a people never were united under like circumstances 
before. God has blessed us with success disproportionate to our 
means, and under his divine favor our labors must at last be 
crowned with the reward due to men who have given all they 
possessed to the righteous defense of their inalienable rights, 
their homes, and their altars. Jefferson Davis 

On three occasions a trio of '' ambassadors " from the 97. a Con- 
South sought to treat with the United States govern- embassy, 
ment at Washington. First, immediately after the secession February 3, 
ordinance, in December, i860, the ''sovereign state" of , , 
South Carolina sent three gentlemen (Barnv^^ell, Adams, 
and Orr) to President Buchanan to negotiate for the de- 
livery of the forts and other real estate held by the Federal 
government in South Carolina. Second, in March, 1861, 
soon after the formation of the Confederate government at 
Montgomery, President Davis, according to Article VI 
of the provisional Constitution, appointed a commission 
(Roman of Louisiana, Crawford of Georgia, Forsythe of 
Alabama) '' to negotiate friendly relations and to settle all 
questions of disagreement between the Confederate States 
and their late confederates of the United States in relation 
to public property and the public debt." Neither of the 
embassies succeeded in obtaining recognition from the 



436 The Crisis of Disufiioji 

authorities in Washington. Toward the end of the war, 
on the assurance of a favorable reception from President 
Lincoln, a third commission was appointed by President 
Davis, consisting of Vice President Stephens, Judge Camp- 
bell, and Senator Hunter, to discuss the possibilities of 
peace. Stephens tells the story of their embassy as follows : 

The interview took place in the Saloon of the steamer on 
board of which were Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, and which 
lay at anchor near Fortress Monroe. The Commissioners were 
conducted into the Saloon first. Soon after, Mr. Lincoln and 
Mr. Seward entered. After usual salutations on the part of 
those who were previously acquainted, and introductions of the 
others who had never met before, conversation was immediately 
opened by the revival of reminiscences and associations of 
former days. 

This was commenced by myself addressing Mr. Lincoln, and 
alluding to some of the incidents of our Congressional acquaint- 
ance — especially the part we had acted together in effecting 
the election of General Taylor in 1848. To my remarks he 
responded in a cheerful and cordial manner, as if the remem- 
brance of those times, and our connection with the incidents 
referred to, had awakened in him an agreeable train of reflec- 
tions. . . . With this introduction I said in substance : " Well, 
Mr. President, is there no way of putting an end to the present 
trouble, and bringing about a restoration of the general good 
feeling and harmony then existing between the different States 
and Sections of the country ? . . ." 

Mr. Lincoln in reply said in substance that there was but 
one way that he knew of, and that was, for those who were 
resisting the laws of the Union to cease that resistance. All 
the trouble came from an armed resistance against the National 
Authority. 

" But," said I, '' is there no other question that might divert the 
attention of both Parties for a time from the questions involved 
in their present strife, until the passions on both sides might 
cool. ... I allude, of course to Mexico, and what is called the 



The Civil War 437 

Monroe Doctrine — the principles of which are directly involved 
in the contest now waging there." ^ 

Mr. Lincoln replied with considerable earnestness, that he could 
entertain no proposition for ceasing active military operations, 
which was not based upon a pledge first given, for the ultimate 
restoration of the Union. . . . These pointed and emphatic re- 
sponses seemed to put an end to the Conference on the subject 
contemplated in our Mission, as we had no authority to give any 
such pledge, even if we had been inclined to do so, nor was it 
expected that any such would really be required to be given.^ . . . 

Judge Campbell then inquired in what way the settlement 
for a restoration of the Union was to be made. Supposing the 
Confederate States should consent to the general terms as stated 
by Mr. Lincoln, how would the re-establishment of the National 
Authority take place ? . . . 

Mr. Lincoln replied : " By disbanding their armies and per- 
mitting the National Authorities to resume their functions." 

Mr. Seward interposed and said, that Mr. Lincoln could not 
express himself more clearly or forcibly in reference to this 
question, than he had done in his message to Congress in 
December before, and referred specially to . . . these words : 
'' In stating a single condition of peace, I mean simply to say 
that war will cease on the part of the government whenever it 
shall have ceased on the part of those who began it." ^ . . . 

1 On Emperor Napoleon Ill's attempt to establish a French empire 
in Mexico during our Civil War see Muzzey, An American History, 
p. 497. Montgomery Blair, of Lincoln's cabinet, had visited his per- 
sonal friend, President Davis, in Richmond, shortly before the Hampton 
Roads Conference, and made this suggestion of utilizing the Mexican 
situation to sink the hostility between North and South. President 
Lincoln, however, had explicitly refused to authorize such a suggestion. 

2 In his instruction to the commissioners Davis spoke of " securing 
peace to the two countries," while Lincoln insisted on dealing with "our 
common country." " Had not the desire of the commissioners been so 
strong as to induce them to strain their instructions . . . and had not 
Lincoln waived form for substance, Davis' quibble about words would 
have prevented the meeting." — Rhodes, History of the United States, 
1850-1877, Vol. V, p. 68. 

3 See Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, 
pp. 254-255. 



438 TJie Crisis of Disunion 

I asked Mr. Lincoln what would be the status of that portion 
of the Slave population in the Confederate States which had 
not then become free under his Proclamation. . . . Mr. Lincoln 
said that was a judicial question. How the courts would decide 
it he did not know, and could give no answer. His own opinion 
was, that as the Proclamation was a war measii7'e, and would 
have effect only from its being an exercise of the war power, 
as soon as the war ceased it would be inoperative for the future. 
It would be held to apply only to such slaves as had come under 
its operation while it was in active exercise. This was his in- 
dividual opinion, but the courts might decide the other way, 
and hold that it effectually emancipated all the Slaves in the 
States to which it applied at the time. So far as he was con- 
cerned, he should leave it to the courts to decide. He never 
would change or modify the terms of the Proclamation in the 
slightest particular. . . . 

Mr. Seward said that there were only about 200,000 slaves 
who, up to that time, had come under the actual operation of 
the Proclamation, and who were then in the enjoyment of their 
freedom under it. . . . Mr. Seward also said that it might be 
proper to state to us that Congress, a day or two before, had 
proposed a Constitutional Amendment [the XHIth] for the 
immediate abolition of Slavery throughout the United States, 
which he produced and read to us from a newspaper. He said 
this was done as a war measure. If the war were then to cease 
it would probably not be adopted by a number of States suffi- 
cient to make it part of the Constitution. . . . The whole num- 
ber of States being thirty-six, any ten of them could defeat the 
proposed amendment. 

I inquired how this matter could be adjusted, without some 
understanding as to what position the Confederate States would 
occupy towards the others, if they were then to abandon the 
war. Would they be admitted to representation in Congress ? 

Mr. Lincoln very promptly replied, that his own individual 
opinion was, that they ought to be. He also thought they would 
be ; but he could not enter into any stipulation on the subject. 
His own opinion was, that when the resistance ceased, and 
the National Authority was recognized, the States would be 



The Civil War 439 

immediately restored to their practical relations to the Union 
. . . he persisted in asserting that he could not enter into any 
agreement upon this subject, or upon any other matters of that 
sort, with parties in arms against the Government. 

Mr. Hunter interposed, and in illustration of the propriety 
of the Executive entering into agreements with persons in arms 
against the acknowledged rightful public authority, referred to 
repeated instances of this character between Charles I of England 
and the people in arms against him. 

Mr. Lincoln in reply to this said : " I do not profess to be 
posted in history. On all such matters I will turn you over to 
Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I, 
is, that he lost his head in the end. ..." 

After pausing for some time, his head rather bent down, as 
if in deep reflection, while all were silent, he rose up and used 
these words, almost, if not quite, identical : 

" Stephens, if I were in Georgia, and entertained the senti- 
ments I do — though I suppose I should not be permitted to 
stay there long with them ; but if I resided in Georgia, with 
my present sentiments, I '11 tell you what I would do, if I were 
in your place : I would go home and get the Governor of the 
State to call the Legislature together, and get them to recall 
all the State troops from the war ; elect Senators and Members 
to Congress, and ratify this Constitutional Amendment pro- 
spectively^ so as to take effect — say in five years. Such a 
ratification would be valid in my opinion. . . . Whatever may 
have been the views^ of your people before the war, they must 
be convinced now that Slavery is doomed. It cannot last long 
in any event, and the best course, it seems to me, for your 
public men to pursue, would be to adopt such a policy as will 
avoid, as far as possible, the evils of immediate emancipation. 
This would be my course, if I were in your place. ..." 

Mr. Lincoln said that so far as the Confiscation Acts, and 
other penal acts, were concerned, their enforcement was left 
entirely with him, and on that point he was perfectly willing to 
be full and explicit, and on his assurance perfect reliance might 
be placed. He should exercise the power of the Executive with 
the utmost liberality. He went on to say that he would be 



440 The Crisis of Disunion 

willing to be taxed to remunerate the Southern people for their 
slaves. He believed the people of the North were as responsible 
for slavery as the people of the South, and if the war should 
then cease, with the voluntary abolition of Slavery by the States, 
he should be in favor, individually, of the Government paying 
a fair indemnity for the loss to the owners. He said he be- 
lieved this feeling had an extensive existence at the North. He 
knew some who were in favor of an appropriation as high as 
$400,000,000 for this purpose. . . . 

Mr. Seward said that the Northern people were weary of the 
war. They desired peace and a restoration of harmony, and he 
believed they would be willing to pay as an indemnity for the 
slaves, what would be required to continue the war, but stated 
no amount. . . . 

I then said : " I wish, Mr. President, you would re-consider 
the subject of an Armistice on the basis which has been sug- 
gested. Great questions, as well as vast interests, are involved 
in it. If upon so doing, you shall change your mind, you can 
make it known through the Military." 

" Well," said he, as he was taking my hand for a farewell 
leave, and with a peculiar manner very characteristic of him : 
'' Well, Stephens, I will re-consider it, but I do not think my 
mind will change, but I will re-consider." 

The two parties then took formal and friendly leave of each 
other, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward withdrawing first from the 
Saloon together. Col. Babcock, our escort, soon came in to 
conduct us back to the steamer on which we came. 

98. The sur- In his report to Secretary of War Stanton, dated at 

Appomattox, Washington, July 22, 1865, General Grant included the 

April 9, 1865 following correspondence between himself and General Lee 

[464] regarding the surrender of the army of Virginia. After 

the fall of Petersburg had made the surrender of Richmond 

inevitable, Lee, rejecting the advice of some of his officers 

to take to the mountains in western Virginia and wage 

guerrilla warfare, was surrounded by the Union cavalry at 

Appomattox. His correspondence with Grant follows : 



The Civil War 441 

GRANT TO LEE 

April 7, 1865 
General : — 

The result of the last week must convince you of the hope- 
lessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern 
Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my 
duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion 
of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the 
Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern 
"Virginia. U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General 



LEE TO GRANT 

April 7, 1865 
General : — 

I have received your note of this date. Though not enter- 
taining the opinion you express on the hopelessness of further 
resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I 
reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and 
therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms 
you will offer on condition of its surrender. 

R. E. Lee, General 

GRANT TO LEE 

April 8, 1865 
General : — 

Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of same date, 
asking conditions on which I will accept the surrender of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. In reply, I would 
say \}!\2X peace being my great desire, there is but one condition 
I would insist upon — ^ namely. That the men and officers sur- 
rendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again a^gainst 
the Government of the United States until properly exchanged. 
I will meet you. or will designate officers to meet any officers 
you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to 
you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon 
which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will 
be received. U_ S_ Grant, Lieutenant-General 



442 The Crisis of Disimioit 

Lee still hesitated. But when Sheridan on the evening 
of April 8 captured twenty-five Confederate field guns at 
Appomattox Station and seized four trainloads of supplies 
for the Confederate army, and on the next morning Gen- 
eral Ord reached Appomattox and threw his army corps 
against the Confederates, who were desperately attempt- 
ing to fight their way out of the cordon of Union cavalry, 
Lee sent the white flag, and asked for the interview to 
arrange terms of surrender. Grant describes the scene 
in his " Memoirs." 

When I had left camp that morning [April 9] I had not 
expected so soon the result that was then taking place, and 
consequently was in rough garb. I was without a sword, as I 
usually was when on horseback on the field, and wore a soldier's 
blouse for a coat, with the shoulder straps of my rank to indicate 
to the army who I was. When I went into the house I found 
General Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands 
took our seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom 
were in the room during the whole of the interview. 

What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he 
was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was im- 
possible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had 
finally come, or felt sad over the result and was too manly to 
show it. . . . I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the 
downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had 
suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, 
one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for 
which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, 
the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us. 

General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely 
new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely 
the sword which had been presented by the State of Virginia. . . . 

We soon fell into a conversation about old army times [in the 
Mexican War]. He remarked that he remembered me very well 
in the old army. ... Our conversation grew so pleasant that I 



The Civil War 443 

almost forgot the object of our meeting . . . when General Lee 
again interrupted the course of the conversation by suggesting 
that the terms I proposed to give his army ought to be written 
out. I called to General Parker, Secretary on my staff, for writ- 
ing materials, and commenced writing out the following terms : 

Appomattox C. H., Va. 

Gen. R.E.Lee, Apl 9th 1865 

Comd'g C.S.A. 

Gen : In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 
8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va. 
on the following terms, to wit : Rolls of all the officers and men to 
be made in duplicate. One copy to be given to an officer designated 
by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may 
designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up 
arms against the Government of the United States until properly 
exchanged, and each company or regimental commander sign a like 
parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery and 
public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the 
officer appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the 
side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This 
done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, 
not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe 
their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside. 

Very respectfully 

U. S. Grant 
Lt. Gen. 

... I then said to him that I thought this would be about the 
last battle of the war — I sincerely hoped so ; and I said further 
I took it that most of the men in the ranks were small farmers. 
The whole country had been so raided by the two armies that 
it was doubtful whether they would be able to put in a crop to 
carry themselves and their families through the next winter 
without the aid of the horses they were then riding. The United 
States did not want them, and I would therefore instruct the 
officers I left behind to receive the paroles of his troops to let 
every man of the Confederate army who claimed to own a horse 
or mule take the animal to his home. Lee remarked again that 
this would have a happy effect. He then sat down and wrote 
out the following letter : 



444 ^^'-^ Crisis of Distuiion 

Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia 

April 9, 1865 
General : — 

I received your letter of this date containing the terms of the 
surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As 
they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of 
the 8th inst., they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the 
proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect. 

R. E. Lee, General 

While duplicates of the two letters were being made, the 
Union Generals present were severally presented to General 
Lee. 

The much talked of surrendering of Lee's sword and my 
handing it back, this and much more that has been said about 
it is purest romance. . . . 

General Lee, after all was completed, and before taking his 
leave, remarked that his army was in a very bad condition for 
want of food, and that they were without forage ; that his men 
had been living for some days on parched corn exclusively, and 
that he would have to ask me for rations and forage. I told him 
"certainly," and asked for how many men he wanted rations. 
His answer was "about twenty-five thousand": and I authorized 
him to send his own commissary and quartermaster to Appo- 
mattox Station, two or three miles away, where he could have, 
out of the trains we had stopped, all the provisions wanted. . . . 

When news of the surrender first reached our lines our men 
commenced firing a salute of a hundred guns in honor of the 
victory. I at once sent word, however, to have it stopped. The 
Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to 
exult over their downfall. . . . 

I suggested to General Lee that there was not a man in the 
Confederacy whose influence with the soldiery and the whole 
people was as great as his, and that if he would now advise the 
surrender of all the armies I had no doubt his advice would be 
followed with alacrity.^ But Lee said, that he could not do that 

1 This testimony to Lee's influence is corroborated by John S. Wise 
of Virginia, a second lieutenant in the Confederate army at the close 
of the war : " Certain it is that the Confederacy contained no other man 



The Civil War 445 

without consulting the President first. I knew that there was 
no use urging him to do anything against his ideas of what was 
right. 

When Lee and I separated he went back to his lines and I 
returned to the house of Mr. McLean. Here the officers of 
both armies came in great numbers, and seemed to enjoy the 
meeting as much as though they had been friends separated for 
a long time while fighting battles under the same flag. 

Walt Whitman, the American '' poet of democracy," 99. Poetical 
offered his services as voluntary nurse to the soldiers in Abraham ° 
the hospitals in Washington during the Civil War. The I'i'icoin 
assassination of President Lincoln called forth no nobler ^"^^^1 
tribute than the famous elegy from Whitman's pen : 

O Captain ! My Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 

But O heart ! heart ! heart ! 

O the bleeding drops of red. 

Where on the deck my Captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead ! 

O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills. 

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowding. 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ; 

like Robert E. Lee. When he said that the career of the Confederacy 
was ended ; that the hope of an independent government must be aban- 
doned . . . and that the duty of the future was to abandon the dream of 
a confederacy and render a new and cheerful allegiance to a reunited 
government — his utterances were accepted as true as Holy Writ. No 
other human being on earth, no other earthly power, could have pro- 
duced such acquiescence, or have compelled such prompt acceptance 
of that final and irreversible judgment." — J. S. Wise, The End of an 
Era, p. 344. 



44^ The Crisis of Disimion 

Here Captain ! dear father ! 
This arm beneath your head ! 
It is some dream that on the deck, 
You 've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still. 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won ; 

Exult O Shores, and ring O bells ! 

But I with mournful tread. 

Walk the deck my Captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead. 

The following verses by Tom Taylor appeared in the 
London Punch of May 6, 1865, accompanied by a cartoon 
of John Tenniel's, representing Britannia placing a wreath 
on Columbia's bier. The verses are especially significant 
because Lincoln had been unmercifully caricatured in 
Pimch. 

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, 
Yoic, who with mocking pencil wont to trace. 
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, 
His length of shambling limb, his furrow 'd face. 

His gaunt, gnarl'd hands, his unkempt, bristling hair, 

His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease. 

His lack of all we prize as debonnair. 

Of power or will to shine, or art to please ; 

You, whose smart pen back'd up the pencil's laugh, 
Judging each step as though the way were plain ; 
Reckless, so could it point its paragraph. 
Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain, — 

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet 
The Stars and Stripes he liv'd to rear anew. 



The Civil War 447 

Between the mourners at his head and feet, 
Say, scurrile jester, is there room forjw/? 

Yes : he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil and confute my pen ; 
To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men. 

My shallow judgment I had learn'd to rue. 

Noting how to occasion's height he rose ; 

How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true ; 

How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows ; 

How humble, yet how hopeful he could be ; 
How in good fortune and in ill the same ; 
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he. 
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. 

He went about his work — such work as few 
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand — 
As one who knows, where there 's a task to do, 
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command. 

A felon hand, between the goal and him, 
Reach'd from behind his back, a trigger press'd — 
And those perplex'd and patient eyes were dim. 
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest. 

The words of mercy were upon his lips, 
Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen, 
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse 
To thoughts of peace on earth, good will to men. 

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea, 
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame. 
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high ! 
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came ! 



448 The Crisis of Distinion 

In his beautiful ode recited at the meeting at Harvard 
College, July 21, 1865, in commemoration of the Harvard 
men who fell in the war, James Russell Lowell has these 
lines on Lincoln : 

To front a lie in arms and not to yield, 

This shows, methinks, God's plan 

And measure of a stalwart man, 

Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 

Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, 

Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 

Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 

Whom late the Nation he had led, 

With ashes on her head, 

Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 

Forgive me, if from present things I turn 

To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 

And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 

And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan 

Repeating us by rote : 
For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, 
And choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. 

Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 

A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; 

Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined. 

Fruitful and friendly for all human kind. 

Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 



The Civil War 449 

He knew to bide his time, 

And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 

Till the wise years decide. 
Great captains, with their guns and drums, 

Disturb our judgment for the hour. 

But at last silence comes ; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 

Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, fore-seeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first American, 

Our final selection is the tribute paid by Edwin Mark- 
ham in his lines entitled '' Lincoln " : 

When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour, 

Greatening and darkening as it hurried on. 

She bent the strenuous heavens and came down 

To make a man to meet the mortal need. 

She took the tried clay of the common road — 

Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, 

Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy ; 

Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 

It was a stuff to wear for centuries, 

A man that matched the mountains, and compelled 

The stars to look our way and honor us. 

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth ; 

The tang and odor of the primal things — 

The rectitude and patience of the rocks ; 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn ; 

The courage of the bird that dares the sea ; 

The justice of the rain that loves all leaves ; 

The pity of the snow that hides all scars ; 

The loving-kindness of the wayside well ; 

The tolerance and equity of light 

That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 

As to the great oak flowing to the wind — 



450 The Crisis of Disunion 

To the graves' low hill as to the Matterhorn 
That shoulders out the sky. And so he came 
From prairie cabin up to Capitol, 
One fair Ideal led our chieftain on. 
Forevermore he burned to do his deed 
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. 
He built the rail-pile as he built the State, 
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, 
The conscience of him testing every stroke 
To make his deed the measure of a man. 

So came the Captain with the mighty heart ; 
And when the step of Earthquake shook the house, 
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold 
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again 
The rafters of the Home. He held his place — 
Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. 
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
As when a kingly cedar green with boughs 
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION 

How THE North used its Victory 

Among the Johnson papers in the Library of Congress at loo. A 
Washington is the following letter of General Howell Cobb advice to 
of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury under Buchanan, President 

° ' -^ ■' Johnson on 

written at the request of Major General J. H. Wilson of reconstruc- 
the Union army in Georgia, to be submitted to President ^' •'"°® ^^' 

Johnson : [4771 

Macon, 14 June, 1865 

Brevet Maj. Genl. J. H. Wilson 

Com'ding &c. 

Macon, Ga. 
General 

In compliance with my promise I submit to you in writing 
the views and suggestions which I had the honor of presenting 
in our interview on yesterday. It is due to candor to say that 
I was a secessionist, and counseled the people of Georgia to se- 
cede.-^ When the adoption of that policy resulted in war, I felt 
it my duty to share in the privations of the struggle, and accord- 
ingly at the commencement of the contest, I entered the army, 
and declining all civil employments, remained there to its close. 

I was an ardent supporter of the cause throughout the struggle. 
Upon the surrender of General Johnston, I regarded the contest 
at an end, and have since that time conformed my actions to 
that conviction. . . . 

The contest has ended in the subjugation of the South. The 
parties stand toward each other in the relative position of con- 
queror and conquered ; and the question for statesmen to decide, 

1 See No. 91, p. 394, for Cobb's advice to the people of Georgia. 

451 



452 The Crisis of Disunion 

is, the policy and duty of the respective parties. With regard to 
the latter [the conquered South] the course is plainly marked 
out. ... A return to the peaceful and quiet employments of 
life ; obedience to the constitution and laws of the United States ; 
and the faithful discharge of all the duties and obligations im- 
posed upon them by the new state of things, constitute their 
plain and simple duty.^ 

In the adoption of the policy, which the Government will 
pursue towards the people of the South, there are two matters 
which present themselves for primary and paramount consider- 
ation, i^^ the present condition of things in the South, 2"^ the 
state of things it is desirable to produce, and the best mode 
of doing it. . . . 

The whole country [South] has been more or less devas- 
tated. Their physical condition in the loss of property, and the 
deprivation of the comforts of life ... is as bad as their worst 
enemy could desire. . . . The abolition of slavery not only 

1 That the men of the South were sincerely ready to fulfill that duty 
we have ample testimony. General Grant, who was sent South on a tour 
of inspection by Johnson, reported in December, 1865 : " I am satisfied 
that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation 
of affairs in good faith. The question which has hitherto divided the 
sentiment of the two sections — Slavery and State rights, or the right 
of a State to secede from the Union — they regard as having been 
settled forever by the highest tribunal [arms] that man can resort to. 
. . . My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of the 
southern States are anxious to return to self-government, within the 
Union, as soon as possible. ... It is to be regretted that there cannot 
be a greater commingling, at this time, between the citizens of the two 
sections, and particularly of those entrusted with the law-making power " 
(Senate Executive Documents, 39th Congress, ist session. No. 2, p. 107). 
General Lee wrote to a friend, September 7, 1865 : " Like yourself, I 
have, since the cessation of hostilities, advised all with whom I have 
conversed on the subject, who come within the terms of the president's 
proclamations [of amnesty. May 29, 1865] to take the oath of allegiance, 
and accept in good faith the amnesty offered. . . . The war being at an 
end, the Southern States having laid down their arms, and the questions 
at issue between them and the Northern States having been decided, 
I believe it to be the duty of every one to unite in the restoration of 
the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony" (W. L. 
Fleming, Documentary History of Reconstruction, Vol. I, p. 63). 



The Era of Reconstruction 453 

deprives them of a large property, but revolutionizes the whole 
system of agricultural labor, and must necessarily retard the 
restoration of former prosperity. So completely has this insti- 
tution been interwoven with the whole framework of society, 
that its abolition involves a revision, and modification of almost 
every page of the Statute books of the States where it has 
existed,^ It is with a people, thus depressed in mind, seriously 
injured in estate, and surrounded by embarrassing questions of 
the greatest magnitude, that the Government has to deal . . . 

The avowed object of the Government was to restore the 
Union.^ The successful termination of the war has effected 
that result, so far as further resistance on the part of the South 
is concerned. The people of the South, being prepared to con- 
form to that result, all else for the restoration of the Union is 
in the hands of the Government. 

Looking to the future interests, not only of the Southern 
people, but of the whole country, it is desirable that the bitter 
animosities . . . should be softened as much as possible ; and a 
devastated country restored ... to comparative prosperity. To 
effect these results requires the exercise of virtues, which the 
history of the World shows, are not often, if ever found, in 
the hearts of the conquerors, magnanimity and generosity. The 
World is sadly in need of such an example. Let the United 
States furnish it. There never was a more fitting opportunity. 
It will never be followed by more satisfactory results. . . . 

1 The laws passed to adjust the framework of society in the South 
to the new conditions occasioned by the Hberation of 4,000,000 slaves 
were called the "black laws" or the "black codes" (see Muzzey, An 
American History, pp. 480-481). They were used by the radicals of 
the North in the campaign of 1866 against President Johnson's pohcy 
of granting " home rule " to the Southern states. They never went 
into force, for the Freedman's Bureau at first suspended them, and 
then the " carpetbag governments " established by the Reconstruction 
Act (see No. loi, p. 455) repealed them. Since the fall of the Recon- 
struction Governments, however, the black codes have been virtually 
reenacted in all the Southern States — prohibition of intermarriage, 
distinct white and colored schools, " Jim Crow " cars, etc. A number 
of interesting examples of the black codes may be found in W. L. 
Fleming's Documentary History of Reconstruction, Vol. I, pp. 273-312. 

2 See the Resolution of Congress of July 22, 1861, No. 93 {d), p. 412. 



454 The Crisis of Disunion 

I leave it for those who would counsel a different policy, to 
foreshadow the effects of a contrary course. They may be able 
to see, how more blood, and more suffering will sooner restore 
kindlier feelings. I cannot. In the sufferings already endured, 
and the privations of the present, there appears to me an ample 
atonement, to satisfy the demands of those who would punish 
the South for the past. For the security of the future no such 
policy is required. 

Giving to these general principles the form of practical 
recommendations, I would say that all prosecutions and penal- 
ties should cease against those who stand charged alone with 
the offence of being parties to, and supporters of the Southern 
cause. ... If I could make my voice heard in the councils of 
the Government, I would seek to restore concord and good 
feeling by extending it to those, from whom I asked it in re- 
turn. . . . No man will doubt that the man who is received 
back into the Union, and feels that he has been subjected to no 
severe penalty, and been required to submit to no humiliating 
test, will make a truer and better citizen, than the one who feels 
that his citizenship has been obtained by submitting to harsh and 
degrading terms, which he was compelled to yield to, to secure 
the rights he has acquired. . . . 

By the abolition of .slavery ... a state of things has been 
produced, well calculated to excite the most serious apprehen- 
sions with the people of the South. I regard the result as 
unfortunate both for the white and black. The institution of 
slavery, in my judgment provided the best system of labor that 
could be devised for the negro race. . . . You will find that our 
people are fully prepared to conform to the new state of things 
[emancipation] ; and will be disposed to pursue towards the 
negroes, a course dictated by humanity and kindness. I take 
it for granted, that the future relations, between the negroes 
and their former owners, like all other questions of domestic 
policy, will be under the control and direction of the State 
Governments.^ . . . 

1 In expecting to be allowed to solve their questions of " domestic 
policy" after the war the Southerners were not asking an unreasonable 
favor, according to the views of Abraham Lincoln. In his last cabinet 



The Era of Recoiistrtiction 455 

I am fully conscious of the fact, that what I have said, is 
subject to the criticism of proceeding from an interested party. 
This is true. I am interested, deeply interested in the ques- 
tion, not so much for myself, for I have no future, but for my 
family, my friends, my countrymen. ... So is every man who 
feels an interest in the future not of the South only, but of 
the whole country. 

The men prevailed who '' counselled a different policy " 101. TheRe- 
from that of complete amnesty and home rule for the ^ct March^ 



meeting Lincoln remarked : " We can't undertake to run State Govern- 
ments in all these Southern States. Their people must do that, though 
I reckon that at first they may do it badly" (F. W. Seward, Life of 
Seward, Vol. Ill, p. 275). It was neither the Southern leaders nor 
Andrew Johnson, under their sinister influence, that inaugurated the 
idea of home rule for the South after the war — it was Abraham Lincoln. 
The radicals at the North were indignant that Johnson should take into 
his own hands the problem of Reconstruction, during the recess of Con- 
gress, by issuing an amnesty proclamation and allowing governments to 
set themselves up in the Southern states; and were exasperated that 
these measures of Johnson were winning for him the approbation of 
moderate men in both sections. " Is there no way to arrest the insane 
course of the President in reorganization," wrote Thaddeus Stevens to 
Sumner on the very day (June 14, 1865) that Cobb wrote his letter of 
advice to the President ; " If something is not done, the President will 
be crowned king before Congress meets " (Works of Charles Sumner, 
ed. G. F. Hoar, Vol. IX, p. 543). And Benjamin Wade of Ohio wrote 
to Sumner (July 29) : "The President is pursuing and resolved to pursue 
a course in regard to reconstruction that can result in nothing but con- 
signing the great Union or Republican party, bound hand and foot to 
the tender mercies of the rebels we have so lately conquered in the 
field, and their copperhead allies of the North" (Works of Charles 
Sumner, Vol. IX, p. 480). Extreme radicals like Sumner, Wade, and 
Chase had made up their minds before the close of the war that the 
negro must be given the ballot in order to protect himself. Chase wrote 
to Lincoln, from Baltimore, April 11, 1865: "As to the rebel States, 
the easiest and safest way seems to me to be the enrollment of loyal 
citizens without regard to complexion. . . . This you know has long 
been my opinion. It is confirmed by observation more and more. . . . 
It will be hereafter counted equally a crime and a folly if the colored 
loyalists of the rebel States are left to the control of restored rebels . . ." 
(War of the Rebellion, Official Records, Series I, Vol. XLVII, Part III, 
pp. 427-428). 



1867 

[484] 



456 The Crisis of Disunio7i 

South advocated in General Cobb's letter. General Carl 
Schurz, President Johnson's special commissioner to the 
South to study political and social conditions there, reported 
(December, 1865): ''Treason does, under existing cir- 
cumstances, not appear odious in the South. The people 
are not impressed with any sense of its criminality. . . . 
There is as yet among the Southern people an utter 
lack of national feeling."^ The committee of fifteen ap- 
pointed by Congress (December, 1865), "to inquire into 
the condition of the States which formed the so-called 
Confederate States of America, and report whether they 
or any of them are entitled to be represented in either 
House of Congress," reported in June, 1866, that it would 
be "folly and madness" to permit " conquered enemies . . . 
at their own pleasure and on their own terms, to partici- 
pate in making laws for their conquerors. . . . That be- 
fore allowing such representation, adequate security for 
future peace and safety should be required ; that this can 
be found only in such changes in the organic law as shall 

1 Senate Executive Documents, 39th Congress, rst session, Vol. I, 
No. 2, p. 13. A good example of the defiant submission of the Southern 
leaders is found in a letter of the gallant General Wade Hampton of 
South Carolina to President Johnson (1866). " The South unequivocally 
accepts the situation in which she is placed. . . . She intends to abide by 
the laws of the land honestly . . . and to keep her word sacredly, and I 
assert that the North has no right to demand more of her. You have 
no right to ask or expect that she will at once profess unbounded love 
to that Union from which for four years she tried to escape at the cost 
of her best blood and all her treasure. Nor can you believe her to be 
so unutterably hypocritical, so base, as to declare that the flag of the 
Union has already usurped in her heart the place which has so long 
been sacred to the ' Southern Cross.' The men at the South who make 
such professions are renegades and traitors, and they will surely betray 
you if you trust them. But the brave men who fought to the last in a 
cause which they believed and still believe to have been a just one . . . 
will prove true to their obligations." — Quoted by W. L. Fleming : Docu- 
mentary History of Reconstruction, Vol. I, p. 66. 



The Era of Recoiisti'iLctioii 457 

determine the civil rights and privileges of all citizens in 
all parts of the republic, . . . shall fix a stigma upon trea- 
son, and protect the loyal people against future claims for 
the expenses incurred in support of rebellion and for man- 
umitted slaves." 1 Relying on these reports and exasperated 
by President Johnson's coarse attacks on them in public 
speeches for their interference with his policy toward the 
South, the leaders of the thirty-ninth Congress took the 
matter of reconstruction wholly into their own hands and 
undid the entire work of the ''Johnson governments" by 
the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867. 

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE MORE EFFICIENT 
GOVERNMENT OF THE REBEL STATES 

Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection 
for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, 
Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and whereas it is 
necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said 
States, until loyal republican State governments can be legally 
established : Therefore 

Be it enacted. . . . That said rebel States shall be divided into 
military districts and made subject to the military authority of 
the United States as hereinafter "prescribed, and for that purpose 
Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and 
South Carolina the second district ; Georgia, Alabama, and 
Florida the third district ; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth 
district ; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district ; 

Sec. 2. . . . That it shall be the duty of the President to 
assign to the command of each of said districts an officer of the 
army, not below the rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a suffi- 
cient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and 
enforce his authority within the district to which he is assigned. 

1 House Reports, 39th Congress, ist session, Vol. II, No. 30, 
pp. xx-xxi. 



45^ -l-^ie Crisis of Dismtion 

Sec. 3. . . . That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned 
as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their right of person and 
property ; to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and 
to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public 
peace and criminals ; and to this end he may allow local civil 
tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, w^hen in 
his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders, he 
shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals 
for that purpose, and all interference under color of State 
authority with the exercise of military authority under this act, 
shall be null and void. 

Sec. 4. . . . That all persons put under military arrest by 
virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no 
cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted, and no sentence 
. . . affecting the life or liberty of any person shall be executed 
until it is approved by the officer in command of the district, and 
... no sentence of death under the provisions of this act shall 
be carried into effect without the approval of the President. 

Sec. 5. . . . That when the people of any one of said rebel 
States shall have formed a constitution of government in con- 
formity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, 
framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens 
of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever 
race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in 
said State for one year previous to the day of such election, 
except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the 
rebellion, or for felony at common law, and when such Consti- 
tution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed 
by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated 
for electors of delegates, and when such constitutions shall be 
ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of 
ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when 
such constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for 
examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved 
the same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected 
under said constitution, shall have adapted the amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the thirty- 
ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said 



TJie Era of ReconstriLction 459 

article shall have become part of the Constitution of the United 
States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in 
Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted 
therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then 
and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoper- 
ative in said State : Provided, That no person excluded from the 
privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States,^ shall be eligible to election as 
a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of 
said rebel States, nor shall any such person rate for members of 
such convention. . . . 

Disqualified for office-holding by the Fourteenth Amend- 102. Ku- 
ment, disfranchised and subjected to the rule of the negro ^^^y^ 1871 
by the Reconstruction Act, the whites of the South re- [487] 
sorted to extra-legal methods for maintaining their suprem- 
acy. Secret societies under various names (Ku-Klux Klans, 
Knights of the White Camelia, Pale Faces, Councils of 
Safety, White Leagues, etc.) were founded in all the 
states of the South to thwart the execution of the Recon- 
struction Acts by terrorizing the negroes who had political 
ambitions, and harrying the scalawag and the carpetbagger 
out of Dixie. At the request of President Grant, Congress, 
on April 20, 1871, passed the ''Ku-Klux Act," to en- 
force the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment ; and 
a joint committee, composed of fourteen representatives 
and seven senators, was appointed " to inquire into the 
condition of the late insurrectionary States, so far as 
regards the execution of the laws and the safety of the 
lives and property of the citizens of the United States " 
(see Amendment XIV, Sect. I). The report of the com- 
mittee (February 19, 1872), with the testimony of witnesses 

1 The classes of persons disqualified are enumerated in Section 3 of 
the Fourteenth Amendment. 



460 The Crisis of Disjinion 

examined both in Washington and by a subcommittee in the 
South, fills thirteen closely printed volumes, published by 
the Government Printing Office. The following extracts 
are from the testimony of General John B. Gordon ^ and a 
negro, Scipio Eager, two of the one hundred and forty- 
eight witnesses from the state of Georgia. 

Washington D.C. July 27, 187 1 
John B. Gordon, sworn and examined. 

Question. The object we had in calling you as a witness was 
to get from you if possible a general view of the condition of the 
State of Georgia, to ascertain whether property and life are 
protected there, whether any crimes have been committed by 
disguised men. From your general knowledge of affairs in that 
State, we desire you to tell us whatever will enable the committee 
to understand fully the condition of affairs in Georgia. . . . 

Answer. ... I want to say very distinctly that our people 
have not entertained animosity and bitterness toward the troops ; 
our feelings are directed toward these camp-followers and men 
who have come in our midst since the war — men without char- 
acter and without intelligence, except a certain sort of shrewd- 
ness by which they have been enabled to impose themselves 
upon the negro and acquire gain, some of them very much gain, 
out of the pittances they have been able to get out of the negro 
one way and another. Some of them have gotten into office 
from counties where they never were but once or twice during 
the whole canvass. ... I know of one or two members of the 
legislature who never resided at all in the counties from which 
they were sent, except a few days before the election. My own 
impression, from what I have seen in Georgia, is that the 

1 Gordon was candidate for Governor of Georgia in 1868. He had 
been a valuable officer in Lee's army, and was " in at the death " at 
Appomattox. It was his reply to Lee's messenger on the morning of 
April 9, 1865, '' Tell General Lee that I have fought my corps to a 
frazzle," that determined the Southern commander to surrender. Quoted 
by J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. V, p. 125. 



The Era of Reconstruction 461 

negroes, left free from this influence, would have been exceed- 
ingly peaceable. The very kindliest relations exist between the 
old masters and their former servants. . . . Our people have no 
interest in driving these negroes out of the country. Their 
interest is directly the reverse. We want them there. We oppose 
their being carried away, even to Mississippi. . . . 

I will state a fact which I think will be borne out by every 
honest man in Georgia — that the negro today, before a jury of 
Southern men in Georgia, has as fair a chance of justice as 
a white man, if not a better chance. I believe this as firmly as 
that I am sitting in this chair. . . . 

Question. What do you know of any combinations in Georgia 
known as Ku-Klux, or by any other name, who have been 
violating law ? 

Afiswer. I do not know anything about any Ku-Klux organ- 
ization, as the papers talk about it . . . but I do know that an 
organization did exist in Georgia at one time. I know that in 
1868 ... I was approached and asked to attach myself to a 
secret organization in Georgia. . . . The object of this organ- 
ization was explained to me at the time ; and I want to say that 
I approved of it most heartily. . . . 

Question. Tell us all about what that organization was. 

Ajiswer. The organization was simply this — nothing more or 
nothing less : it was an organization, a brotherhood of property- 
holders, the peaceable, law-abiding citizens of the State, for 
self-protection. The instinct of self-protection, prompted that 
organization ; the sense of insecurity and danger, particularly 
in those neighborhoods where the negro population largely pre- 
dominated. . . . We were afraid to have a public organization ; 
because we supposed that it would be construed at once, by the 
authorities at Washington, as an organization antagonistic to 
the Government of the United States. . . . This organization, 
I think, extended nearly all over the State. It was, I say, an 
organization purely for self-defence. It had no more politics in 
it than the organization of the Masons. . . . This society was 
purely a police organization, to keep the peace, to prevent 
disturbance in our State. . . . 

Question. You had no riding about at nights ? 



462 The Crisis of Distmion 

Answer. None on earth. I have no doubt that such things 
have occurred in Georgia. It is notoriously stated . . . that dis- 
guised parties have committed outrages in Georgia. . . . There 
is not a good man in Georgia who does not deplore that thing 
as much as any radical deplores it. When I use the term " radi- 
cal," I do not mean to reflect upon the Republican party gener- 
ally ; but in our State a republican is a very different sort of a 
man from a republican generally in the Northern States. In 
our State republicanism means nothing in the world but creat- 
ing disturbance, riot, and animosity, and filching and plundering. 
This is what it means in our State — nothing else. ... It strikes 
me as the very highest commentary upon the law-abiding spirit 
of the people of Georgia that such men as I could name — men 
in high position who have plundered our people by the million 

— still live and are countenanced upon the streets. . . . 

I know that the general feeling at the North is that our people 
are hostile to the Government of the United States. Upon that 
point I wish to testify. ... I know very well that if the pro- 
gramme which our people saw set on foot at Appomattox Court- 
House [see No. 98, p. 442] had been carried out — if our 
people had been met in the spirit which we believe existed 
there among the officers and soldiers, from General Grant down 

— we would have had no disturbance in the South. . . . Right 
or wrong, it is the impression of the southern mind — it is the 
conviction of my own mind, in which I am perfectly sincere and 
honest — that we have not been 'met in the proper spirit. We 
in Georgia do not believe that we have been allowed proper 
credit for our honesty of purpose. . . . To say to our people : 
" You are unworthy to vote ; you cannot hold office ; we are 
unwilling to trust you ; you are not honest men ; your former 
slaves are better fitted to administer the laws than you are ; " 
this sort of dealing with us has emphatically alienated our people. 
The burning of Atlanta and all the devastation through Georgia 
never created a tithe of the animosity that has been created by 
this sort of treatment of our people. Not that we wanted offices ; 
that is not the point at all, though our people feel that it is an 
outrage to say that the best men in our midst shall not hold 
office. . . . We feel a sense of wrong as honorable men. We 



TJie Era of Reconstruction 463 

do not think we have done anything in the dark. . . . We had 
fought the contest out ; we had been defeated ; and we thought 
that ought to be the last of it. That was the way we felt at the 
South. By the course that has been pursued toward us since 
the surrender we have been disappointed, and the feeling of 
alienation among our people has in this way been increased 
more than by any other one fact. In addition to that, we in 
Georgia think that some of the most grievous outrages have been 
inflicted upon our people by the military authorities sustained 
by the Government. 

Atlanta, Georgia, October, 27, 187 1 
SciPio Eager (colored) sworn and examined : 

Qiiestio?!. What is your age, where were you bom, and where 
do you now live ? 

Answer. I am about twenty-four or twenty-five years old, as 
nigh as I can get at it ; I do not know my age exactly. I was 
born in Hancock County and I live in Washington County 
when I am at home. 

Q. Why did you leave ? 

A. Because the Ku-Klux were after me. 

Q. Are the Ku-Klux in Washington County ? 

A. Yes, sir ; there 's where my brother got killed. 

Q. Did they do anything to you ? 

A. Yes sir, they whipped me so bad that I never laid down 
and rested for three weeks after they got through with me. . . . 

Q. At what time did they go to your house ; in the day-time 
or night-time .? 

A. It was in the night. 

Q. How many of them were there ? 

A. About a hundred, as near as I can get at it. I heard 
some say who counted them that there were a hundred of them. 

Q. How were they fixed up ? 

A. They had uniforms on. 

Q. Describe the uniform as well as you can. 

A. Some of them had white, some had black ; they had all 
sorts of colors.^ 

1 The costume of the Ku-Klux riders is described as follows : " A 
long gown with loose flowing sleeves, with a hood in which the apertures 



464 The Crisis of Disiniiofi 

Q. Did you know any of them ? 

A. Yes sir, I knew some of them . . . three or four [names 
follow]. 

Q. Tell us what they did when they came to your house ; 
give us a history of the transaction. 

A. They came and got me first and tied my hands behind 
me, and asked where was my other brother. ... I said, '^ Gentle- 
men, what are you going to do with me ? " He said, " Never 
mind, I will tell you what when I am through with you." They 
said we never voted right. Mr. Alfred Harrison tried his best 
to get us not to go to the election, but we would go to the 
election, and we voted. . . . They carried me off into the woods, 
about a mile from the house, while they killed my brother. I 
kept questioning them : " What are you going to do with me ? 
I have not done anything at all." They said, " Never mind, we 
will tell you what we will do after we carry you off." They had 
killed a man last year over there. They carried me right through 
to his grave, and told me they were going to kill me. . . . They 
had their pistols at my face on both sides ; they were all around 
me. I stopped talking and would not say anything. They all 

for the eyes, nose and mouth are trimmed with some red material. . . . 
In some instances they have disguised their horses so that even they 
should not be recognized. ... It is a large loose gown covering the 
whole person quite closely, buttoned close around and reaching from 
the head clear down to the floor, covering the feet and dragging on 
the ground. It is made of bleached linen, starched and ironed, and 
in the night, by moonlight, it glitters and rattles " (Statement of Joseph 
Holden of North Carolina, quoted by Fleming, Documentary History 
of Reconstruction, Vol. II, p. 364). " A trick of frequent perpetration 
in the country was for a horseman, spectral and ghostly looking, to 
stop before the cabin of some negro needing a wholesome impression 
and call for a bucket of water. If a dipper or gourd was brought, it was 
declined, and the bucket full of water demanded. As if consumed by 
raging thirst the horseman grasped it and pressed it to his lips. He 
held it there till every drop of the water was poured into a gum or 
oiled sack concealed beneath the Ku-Klux robe. Then the empty 
bucket was returned to the amazed negro with the remark : ' That 's 
good. It 's the first drink of water I 've had since I was killed at 
Shiloh.' Then a few words of counsel as to future behavior made an 
impression not likely to be disregarded " (Lester and Wilson, The 
Ku-Klux Klan, pp. 98-99). 



TJie Era of Reconstj'iLction 465 

got into a huddle, just like a swarm of bees. . . . After they 
pulled their disguises off their faces, they came there and told 
me that I was to be whipped. I thought it was all right, and 
that it would be better to be whipped than to be killed like my 
brother. In my brother's back I counted some hundred and 
odd shots, bullets and buckshot holes. . . . 

Q. Did they whip you over your clothes ? 

A. No, sir ! . . . They took off every rag of clothes I had, 
and laid me down on the ground, and some stood on my head 
and some on my feet. I can't tell how many men whipped me 
at once. They went out and got great big long brushes, as big 
as these chair-posts, and they whipped them all into frassels. 
There are welts on me now. ... I tried to run, and some threw 
rocks at me, and some said " Shoot him " ; but they did not. 

Q. Did they get after you again "i 

A. Yes, sir ; in July. . . . 

Q. What did they do ? 

A. They did n't catch me then. They came and searched my 
house. They had dogs to search around, but they did n't catch me. 

Q. What kind of dogs } 

A. What they call '' nigger-hounds " ; such as they had in 
the old slavery times ; Dudley had the dogs. 

Q. Do they keep such dogs in your county now 1 

A. Yes, sir ; just on purpose for that business. . . . 

Q. Are there many Ku-Klux up there ? 

A. O yes, sir ; you could see a hundred and fifty any time 
before I came away from there. . . . 

Q. Have any of those people been arrested or punished for 
killing your brother or whipping you ? 

A. No, sir ; I have been here since July, and I have been 
around mighty near to every one of these offices, and I could 
not do anything. . . . Mr. Harrison, the man who killed my 
brother, he said it was no use to have anything done but to 
have him buried. 

Q. What did you go to him for ? 

A. I did not know what to do. I was just like a rabbit 
when the dogs are after him ; I had to do anything I could to 
try to save my life. 



466 The Crisis of Disunion 



The Recovery of the Nation 

103. The Toward the end of Grant's first term a group of " pro- 

pubiican gressive " Republicans, disgusted with the official corrup- 

movement of ^jq^^ the harsh measures applied to the South, the military 

r., autocracy, and the burdensome protective-tariff policy 

which characterized the administration at Washington, 

started "an independent movement that seemed to presage 

a new era in American politics." ^ The call to arms was 

sent out by a state convention, assembled at Jefferson 

City, Missouri, January 24, 1872: 

Resolved, That we, the Liberal Republicans of Missouri, 
faithful now, as we were in the dark days of civil war, to the 
principles of true republicanism, by no act or word will en- 
danger rightful sovereignty of the Union, emancipation,^ equal- 
ity of civil rights,^ or enfranchisement.* To these established 
facts, now embedded in the Constitution, we claim the loyalty 
of all good citizens. 

Resolved, That a true and lasting peace can come only from 
such proposed reconciliation as enfranchisement has wrought in 
this State,^ nor can those governments be pure or just in which 
the tax-payers have no active part. We therefore demand, with 
equal suffrage for all, complete amnesty for all, that the intelli- 
gent and experienced of every State may be welcomed to active 
service for the common welfare. 

1 J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. VI, p. 417. 

2 By the Thirteenth Amendment. 

2 By the Fourteenth Amendment, Sect. I. 

* By the Fifteenth Amendment. 

^ Missouri, by a combination of Hberal Repubhcans and Democrats, 
had just revised the harsh Constitution of 1865, which disfranchised 
" rebel sympathizers." " The State [Missouri] had not seceded, but tens 
of thousands of her people had joined the rebel ranks. To prevent them 
from sharing in the government while fighting to overthrow it, these 
allies of the Rebellion had by an amendment to the State Constitution 
been disqualified from exercising the right of citizenship." — James G. 
Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II, p. 517. 



The Era of ReconstriLctioii 467 

Resolved, That no form of taxation is just or wise which puts 
needless burdens upon the people. We demand a genuine re- 
form of the tariff, so that those duties shall be removed, which 
in addition to the revenue yielded to the Treasury, involve in- 
crease in the price of domestic products, and a consequent tax 
for the benefit of favored interests. 

Resolved, That the shameless abuse of government patronage 
for the control of conventions and elections, whether in the in- 
terests of an individual, a faction, or a party, with the conse- 
quent corruption and demoralization of political life, demands a 
thorough and genuine reform of public service. Those who 
would suppress investigation forget that they owe a higher duty 
to the country than to any party. . . . 

Resolved, That local self-government with impartial suffrage, 
will guard the rights of all citizens more securely than any cen- 
tralized authority. It is time to stop the growing encroachment 
of executive power, the use of coercion or bribery to ratify a 
treaty, the packing of a Supreme Court to relieve rich corpora- 
tions, the seating of members of Congress not elected by the 
people, the resort to unconstitutional laws to cure Ku-Klux dis- 
orders.^ . . . We demand for the individual the largest liberty 
consistent with public order, for the State, self-government, 
and for the nation, return to the methods of peace, and the 
constitutional limitations of power. 

Resolved, That true Republicanism makes it not the less our 
duty to expose corruption, denounce usurpation of power, and 
work for reforms necessary to the public welfare. The times 
demand an uprising of honest citizens to sweep from power the 
men who prostitute the name of an honored party to selfish in- 
terests. We therefore invite all Republicans, who desire the re- 
forms herein set forth, to meet in national mass convention at 
the city of Cincinnati, on the first Wednesday of May next at 
12m., there to take such action as our convicticn of duty and 
the public exigency may require. 

1 The student may find what acts of President Grant's first admin- 
istration are referred to in this paragraph by consulting). F. Rhodes, 
History of the United States since 1850, Vol. VI, pp. 267 ff., 313 ff., 
347 ff- 



468 TJie Crisis of Disunion 

Of the convention that met at Cincinnati, May i, 1872, 
in response to the above call, the correspondent of the 
Nation (May 9) wrote : " I doubt whether a more respect- 
able, honest, intellectual, public-spirited, body of men ever 
got together for a similar purpose." The '' leader and 
master-mind " of the movement was Carl Schurz, a Ger- 
man refugee of 1848, who won great distinction in his 
adopted land as general in the Civil War, United States 
senator from Missouri, and Secretary of the Interior in 
President Hayes's cabinet. Schurz was elected chairman of 
the convention, and delivered an opening address "unique 
in the annals of political assemblies." ^ 

Nobody can survey this vast and enthusiastic assembly, 
gathered from all parts of the Republic, without an emotion of 
astonishment and hope — astonishment considering the spon- 
taneity of the impulse which has brought it together, and hope 
considering the great purpose for which it has met. The Re- 
public may well congratulate itself upon the fact that such a 
meeting was possible. Look at the circumstances from which 
it has sprung. We saw the American people just issued from 
a great and successful struggle, and in the full pride of their 
National strength, threatened with new evils and dangers of an 
insidious nature, and the masses of the population apparently 
not aware of them. We saw jobbery and corruption, stimulated 
to unusual audacity by the opportunities of a protracted civil 
war, invading the public service of the Government . . . and we 
saw a public opinion most deplorably lenient in its judgment of 
public and private dishonesty. . . . We saw the Government in- 
dulging in wanton disregard of the laws of the land, and resort- 
ing to daring assumptions of unconstitutional power. . . . We 
saw men in the highest places of the Republic employ their 

1 Bancroft and Dunning, " The Political Career of Carl Schurz," ap- 
pendix to the Autobiography of Schurz, Vol. Ill, p. 343. For a polite 
denunciation of Schurz by a political opponent, see Blaine, Twenty 
Years of Congress, Vol. II, pp. 438-440. 



The Era of Recoiistnictioii 469 

power and opportunities for selfish advantage, thus stimulating 
the demoralization of our political life, and by their conspicuous 
example, and the loud chorus of partisan sycophancy, drown the 
voice of honest criticism. We saw part of our common country 
which had been convulsed by a disastrous rebellion, most griev- 
ously suffering from the consequences of civil war ; and we saw 
the haughty spirit of power refusing to lift up those who had 
gone astray and were now suffering, by a policy of generous 
conciliation and the statesmanship of common sense. We ob- 
served this, and at the same time a reckless and a greedy party 
spirit, in the name of a great organization, crowned with the 
laurels of glorious achievements, striving to palliate or justify 
these wrongs and abuses, to stifle the moral sense of the people, 
and to drive them by a tyrannical party discipline not only to 
submit to this for the present, but to perpetuate it, that the 
political power of the country might be preserved in the hands 
of those who possessed it. . . . 

The question might well have been asked. Have the Ameri- 
can people become so utterly indifferent to their true interests, 
to their National harmony, to the purity of their political life, to 
the integrity of their free institutions, to the very honor of the 
American name, that they should permit themselves to be driven 
like a flock of sheep by those who presume to lord it over them ? 
That question has now found an answer. The virtue, the spirit 
of independence, the love of liberty, the republican pride of the 
American people are not dead yet and do not mean to die; 
and that answer is given in thunder-tones by the convention 
of American freemen here assembled. . . . 

We have a grand opportunity before us, grand and full of 
promise. We can crush corruption in our public concerns ; we 
can give the Republic a pure and honest Government ; we can 
revive the authority of the laws ; we can restore to full value the 
Constitutional safeguard of our liberties ; we can infuse a higher 
moral spirit into our political life ; we can reanimate in the hearts 
of the whole people of every section of the land a fraternal and 
proud National feeling. We can do all this, but we can do it 
only by throwing behind us the selfish spirit of political trade. 
We obey the purest and loftiest inspirations of the popular 



470 The Crisis of Disunion 

uprising which sent us here. . . . An uprising of the people such 
as we behold will not occur every day, nor every year, for it 
must spring from the spontaneous impulse of the popular mind. 
Disappoint the high expectations brought forth by that spon- 
taneous impulse, and you have not only lost a great opportunity, 
but you have struck a blow at the confidence which the people 
have in themselves, and for a long time popular reform move- 
ments will not rise again under the weight of the discredit which 
you will have brought upon them. . . . 

Reform must become a farce in the hands of those who either 
do not understand it or do not care for it. If you mean reform, 
intrust the work to none but those who can understand it and 
honestly do care, and care more for it than for their own personal 
ends. ... I earnestly deprecate the cry we have heard so fre- 
quently : '' Anybody to beat Grant." There is something more 
wanted than to beat Grant. Not anybody who might by cheap 
popularity, or by astute bargains and combinations, or by all the 
tricks of political wire-pulling, manage to scrape together votes 
enough to be elected President. We do not merely want another, 
but we want a better President than we now have. We do not 
want a mere change of person in the Administration of the 
Government ; we want the overthrow of a pernicious system. . . . 
We want a Government which the best people of this country 
will be proud of. Not anybody can accomplish that, and, there- 
fore, away with the cry : " Anybody to beat Grant " ; a cry too 
paltry, too unworthy of the great enterprise in which we are 
engaged. I do not struggle for the mere punishment of an 
opponent, nor for a temporary lease of power. . . . 

If we present men to the suffrages of the people whose char- 
acter and names appeal to the loftiest instincts and aspirations 
of the patriot-citizen, we shall have on our side , . . the conscience 
of the Nation. If that be done success will be certain. Then 
we can appeal to the minds and hearts, to the loftiest ambition 
of the people, with these arguments and entreaties which spring 
only from a clear conviction of right, . . . Then shall we success- 
fully overcome those prejudices which now confront us, and the 
insidious accusation that this great Convention is a mere gath- 
ering of disappointed and greedy politicians, will fall harmless 



The Era of Recoiistriictioji 471 

at our feet, for we shall have demonstrated by our action that 
we were guided by the purest and most patriotic of motives. 

Let us despise as unworthy of our cause the tricky manipu- 
lations by which, to the detriment of the Republic, political bodies 
have so frequently been controlled. Let us, in the face of the 
great things to be accomplished, rise above all petty considera- 
tions. Personal friendship and State pride are noble sentiments ; 
but what is personal friendship, what is State pride, compared 
with the great duty we owe to our common countr)^ and the 
awful responsibility resting upon our action as sensible men ? 
We know that not every one of us can be gratified by the choice 
of his favorite ; many of us will have to be disappointed ; ^ but 
in this solemn hour our hearts should know but one favorite, 
and that is the American Republic. 

Pardon me for these words of warning and entreaty. I trust 
nobody will consider them misplaced. I fervently hope the result 
of our deliberations will show that they were not spoken in vain. 
I know that they have sprung from the most anxious desire to 
do what is best for our country, and thus I appeal to you with 
all the fervor of anxious earnestness. We stand on the threshold 
of a great victory, and victory will surely be ours if we deserve it. 

Our case against Great Britain for damage done to 104. The 
American shipping during the Civil War, by the Alabama ^^^^^ 
and other cruisers built for the Confederate government humbug" 
in British ports, dragged on for seven years after the close l"^^^] 
of the war. Even after the court of arbitration had met at 
Geneva (December 15, 1871), proceedings threatened to 

1 Schurz was destined himself to be bitteriy disappointed when, the 
very day after his noble speech, a political bargain was made by the 
Gratz Brown forces of Missouri and the Greeley forces of New York to 
keep Charles Francis Adams, our distinguished ex-minister to England, 
out of the nomination. Schurz wrote to Greeley, May 6, " My whole heart 
was and is in the cause I have so laboriously worked for, and it is with 
a grief which I cannot express that I see a movement so hopefully be- 
gun, so noble and so promising, dragged down to the level of an ordinary 
political operation, and stripped of its moral power." — Writings of 
Carl Schurz, ed. Frederick Bancroft, Vol. II, p. 367. 



4/2 TJie Crisis of Disunion 

come to a standstill because of certain enormous " Indirect 
claims " for damages/ asserted by the radical Republicans 
in the United States. These claims were forcibly stated by 
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in a speech in the Senate, 
April 13, 1869. 

Close upon the outbreak of our troubles, little more than one 
month after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, when the Rebel- 
lion was still undeveloped . . . the country was startled by the 
news that the British Government had intervened by a Procla- 
mation which accorded belligerent rights to the Rebels. At the 
early date when this was done, the Rebels were, as they remained 
to the close, without ships on the ocean . . . and yet the conces- 
sion was general, being applicable to the ocean and the land, so 
that by British fiat they became ocean belligerents as well as land 
belligerents. ... In the swiftness of this bestowal there was very 
little consideration for a friendly power. . . . 

Unfriendly in the precipitancy with which it was launched, 
this concession was more unfriendly in its substance. It was the 
first stage in the depredations on our commerce. Had it not been 
made, no Rebel ship could have been built in England ; every 
step in her building would have been piracy. Nor could any 
munitions of war have been furnished. . . . The direct con- 
sequence of this concession was to place the Rebels on an 
equality with ourselves in all British markets. ... At one 
stroke they were transformed not only into belligerents, but into 
customers. ... It was a proclamation of equality between the 
National Government on the one side and the Rebels on the other, ^ 
and no plausible word can obscure this distinctive character. 

1 For example, Earl Russell, foreign minister in the Palmerston 
cabinet in 1862, who, by his own confession later, was responsible for 
the departure of the Alabatna from Liverpool, said in the House of Lords, 
May 13, 1872: "Unless we are assured that no representative of Her 
Majesty shall appear in a room on the table of which those menda- 
cious Claims are lying, ... I shall certainly renew again and again my 
motion. . . . The case appears to me to be one between the honour of the 
Crown of this country and the election of General Grant as President of 
the United States. For my part I prefer the honour of Her Majesty." 
— Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, series 3, Vol. CCXI, pp. 646-647. 



The Era of Reconstruction 473 

Then came the building of the pirate ships, one after the other. 
While the Alabama was still in the ship-yard it became apparent 
that she was intended for the Rebels. Our Minister at London 
and our Consul at Liverpool exerted themselves for her arrest 
and detention. They were put off from day to day. On the 
24"' July, 1862, Mr. Adams ''completed his evidence," accom- 
panied by an opinion from the eminent barrister Mr. Collier, 
afterward Solicitor-General, declaring the plain duty of the British 
Government to stop her. Instead of acting promptly by the tele- 
graph, five days were allowed to run out, when at last, too tardily, 
the necessary order was despatched. Meanwhile the pirate ship 
escaped from the port of Liverpool by a stratagem, and her 
voyage began with music and frolic. . . . The pirate ship found 
refuge in an obscure harbor of Wales, known as Moelfra Bay, 
where she lay in British water from 7.30 p.m. July 29''' to about 
3.00 A.M. July 31^* . . . and during this time she was supplied 
with men from the British steam-tug Hercules, which followed 
her from Liverpool. . . . 

The dedication of the ship to the Rebel service, from the very 
laying of the keel, and the organization of her voyage, with 
England as her naval base, from which she drew munitions of 
war and men, made her departure as much a hostile expedition 
as if she had sailed forth from Her Majesty's dock-yard. ... It 
was in no just sense a commercial transaction, but an act of war 

Individual losses may be estimated with reasonable accuracy. 
Ships burnt or sunk with their cargoes may be counted and their 
value determined ; but this leaves without recognition the vaster 
damage to commerce driven from the ocean, and that other 
damage, immense and infinite, caused by the prolongation of the 
war, all of which may be called natio7ial in contradistinction to 
individttal. 

Our national losses have frankly been conceded by eminent 

Englishmen [Cobden, Bright, Forster] How to authenticate 

the extent of the national loss with reasonable certainty is not 
without difficulty; but it cannot be doubted that such a loss 
occurred. It is folly to question it. The loss may be seen in 
various circumstances, as, in the rise of insurance on all American 
vessels, the fate of the carrying trade, which was one of the great 



474 The Crisis of Disunion 

resources of our country ; the diminution of our tonnage . . . 
the falling off in our exports and imports, with due allowance 
for our abnormal currency and the diversion of war. . . . 

Beyond the actual loss in the national 'tonnage, there was a 
further loss in the arrest of our natural increase in this branch 
of industry, which an intelligent statistician puts at 5 % annually, 
making in 1866 a total loss on this account of 1,384,953 tons, 
which must be added to the 1,229,035 tons actually lost. The 
same statistician, after estimating the value of a ton at $40 gold, 
. . . puts the sum-total of our national loss on this account at 
$110,000,000. Of course this is only an item in our bill. . . . 

This is what I have to say at present on natio7ial losses 
through the destruction of commerce. These are large enough ; 
but there is another chapter, where they are far larger : I refer, 
of course, to the national losses caused by the prolongation of 
the war, and traceable directly to England. ... No candid 
person who studies this eventful period can doubt that the 
Rebellion was originally encouraged by hope of support from 
England — that it was strengthened at once by the concession 
of belligerent rights on the ocean — that it was fed to the end 
by British supplies — that it was encouraged by every well- 
stored British ship that was able to defy our blockade — that 
it was quickened into frantic life with every report from the 
British pirates, flaming anew with every burning ship. . . . Not 
weeks nor months, but years, were added in this way to our 
war, so full of costly sacrifice. . . . 

The Rebellion was suppressed at a cost of more than $4,000,- 
000,000. ... If through British intervention, the war was 
doubled in duration, or in any way extended, as cannot be 
doubted, then is England justly responsible for the additional 
expenditure to which our country was doomed. . . . This plain 
statement, without one word of exaggeration or aggravation, is 
enough to exhibit the magnitude of the national losses, whether 
from the destruction of our commerce, the prolongation of the 
war, or the expense of the blockade.^ 

1 Sumner's bill against England was $15,000,000 for individual losses, 
$110,000,000 for the loss of our merchant marine, and $2,000,000,000 for 
the prolongation of the war — a grand total of $2,125,000,000! 



The Era of ReconstriLction 475 

President Grant, who later called the exorbitant claims 
advanced by Sumner the '' indirect damage humbug," 
opened the way for a friendly renewal of the negotia- 
tions by the following friendly passage in his Message of 
December 5, 1870 : 

I regret to say that no conclusion has been reached for the 
adjustment of the claims against Great Britain, growing out of 
the course adopted by that Government during the rebellion. 
The Cabinet of London, so far as its views have been expressed, 
does not appear to be willing to concede that Her Majesty's 
Government was guilty of any negligence, or did or permitted 
any act during the war by which the United States has just 
cause of complaint. Our firm and unalterable convictions are 
directly the reverse. I therefore recommend to Congress to 
authorize the appointment of a commission to take proof of 
the amount and the ownership of these several claims, on notice 
to the representative of Her Majesty at Washington, and that 
authority be given for the settlement of these claims by the 
United States, so that the Government shall have the ownership 
of the private claims as well as the responsible control of all 
the demands against Great Britain. It cannot be necessary to 
add that whenever Her Majesty's Government shall entertain 
a desire for a full and friendly adjustment of these claims, the 
United States will enter upon their consideration with an earnest 
desire for a conclusion consistent with the honor and dignity of 
both nations.^ 



1 Grant's recommendation resulted in the appointment of a joint 
high commission, which concluded the Treaty of Washington (1871), 
by which the claims of the United States were referred to a tribunal at 
Geneva. It was chiefly due to Charles Francis Adams, the American 
member of the board of five arbitrators (and our minister to England 
at the time of the " escape " of the Alabama), that the " indirect claims " 
were dropped and the negotiations conducted on the basis of what 
Sumner called the personal losses ($1 5,000,000) only. The anxiety in 
England over these critical negotiations at a most critical moment in 
the history of Europe (the Franco-Prussian War) is reflected in John 
Morley's Life of Gladstone, Vol. II, chap. ix. 



476 The Q'isis of Disunion 

The most remarkable proposal of the solution of the 
difficulty with England over the Alabama claims came 
from Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, if we may 
fully trust the account of his colleague, Senator W. M. 
Stewart of Nevada, the knight-errant of the American 
frontier democracy. 

During the latter part of February 1865, it became evident 
that the Civil War was drawing to a close, and there was great 
joy in Washington, and intense relief felt among the officers 
at the helm of government when the surrender at Appomattox, 
April 9, 1865, virtually terminated the frightful struggle. 

England had wiped our commerce from the seas by building 
the Alabama^ the Florida, the Shenandoah, and other swift 
privateers for the Confederates, which were let loose upon the 
shipping of the United States. There is no doubt that this 
country had ample cause for war with Great Britain, and there 
was a strong undercurrent of sentiment in favor of it. 

Senator Zach Chandler of Michigan was one of the leaders 
of the Senate, and a man of wealth and patriotism. No Senator 
contributed more in brains and action to assist the Union cause 
than he. He wished to see the speedy restoration of the South- 
ern States, and was anxious to smite the British Lion for the 
destruction of our commerce. He inaugurated a movement 
which secretly spread with great rapidity, "and brought us almost 
to a rupture with England. At that time our ships of trade had 
been obliterated from every ocean, and the American flag, which 
once had been carried by our fast sailing ships to every port, 
had disappeared. We had no navy, but practically every harbor 
was protected by the iron-clads, called Monitors, which had 
been invented and built during the war. Our big sea-coast 
cities were so thoroughly defended, therefore, that no foreign 
enemy could have made a successful assault upon us by sea. . . . 

This started Senator Chandler thinking, and he evolved a 
daring scheme. His bitterness against England seemed to in- 
crease after the war had been terminated. One day he drew 
me aside in the Senate cloak-room and unfolded his plan. 



The Era of Reconstruction 477 

" I propose that we take an appeal to President Lincoln," 
he said, '^ signed by influential men, to call an extra session of 
Congress, and send 200,000 trained veterans into the British 
possessions north of us; 100,000 picked troops from the Federal 
Army, and the same number from the flower of Lee's army. I 
have thought of this seriously for weeks, and I shall make every 
effort to bring it about." He was intensely in earnest, and I 
knew that he would back his plan up with all the brains and 
energy at his command. 

** We have confronting us," he continued, " a great problem. 
Our country is rent in twain. If we could march into Canada 
an army composed of the men who have worn the gray side 
by side with the men who have worn the blue to fight against 
a common hereditary enemy, it would do much to heal the 
wounds of the war, hasten reconstruction, and weld the North 
and South together in a bond of friendship. 

'' I believe from my knowledge of human nature that those 
fellows who have been fighting each other for the past four 
years would sail in and lick any army on the face of the globe, 
and be glad, and proud, and anxious to do it. I believe that 
100,000 of Grant's men and 100,000 of Lee's could whip any 
army of twice the size on earth. . . . 

" It would be impossible for England and the Canadians to 
organize an armed force to meet the splendid army of veterans 
we could throw across the border. England has a navy, of course, 
but she can't do us any harm, because we have n't any commerce 
to be injured, and our ports are impregnable." 

It was Senator Chandler's idea, of course, that the United 
States should seize Canada from Great Britain in payment for 
the enormous losses inflicted on our commerce by British-built 
vessels sold to the Confederate Government. He talked this 
matter over with me many times. The prospect of extending 
our northern boundary to the North Pole pleased him. ... At 
that time Alaska was about to be annexed, and it was realized 
that the British possessions in Canada would come in handy. 

Finally, so far had the plot progressed that thirty Senators 
had been pledged to support it, and I attended many informal 
caucuses at which the next steps to be taken were discussed. 



4/8 The Crisis of Disunion 

Then, at almost the very instant the scheme was to be sprung 
upon the country, and pressure brought to bear upon the Presi- 
dent to secure his cooperation, Mr. Lincoln was assassinated. 
This made the carrying out of the plan impossible. From the 
very first day Johnson took the oath of office as President he 
was at war with Congress, and the invasion of Canada never 
materialized. Chandler's faith and enthusiasm in the scheme won 
some of the best minds in the Senate to his proposition. 



PART VII. THE POLITICAL AND IN- 
DUSTRIAL HISTORY OF THE REPUB- 
LIC SINCE THE CIVIL WAR 



PART VII. THE POLITICAL AND 
INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF THE 
REPUBLIC SINCE THE CIVIL WAR 

CHAPTER XVIII 

TWENTY YEARS OF REPUBLICAN SUPREMACY 

The Republican Machine 

The years immediately following the Civil War saw a io5. The 
rapid increase in farm acreage and railroad mileage in the the°rriiroa^d 
United States. The farmers, dependent on the railroads rsiai 
for transporting their crops to the markets and shipping 
centers of the East, watched with hostile jealousy the rising 
schedule of freight rates, which the railroads maintained 
was necessary to pay the current expenses of operation 
in a thinly populated country and a fair rate of interest 
on the enormous initial cost of the construction of the 
roads. In March, 1869, Mr. H. C. Wheeler, a farmer 
of Illinois, sent out the following call for a convention to 
be held at Bloomington to consider the case against the 
railroads : 

To the Farmers of the Northwest : Will you permit a working 
farmer, whose entire interest is identified with yours, to address 
to you a word of warning ? 

A crisis in our affairs is approaching, and dangers threaten. 

You are aware that the price of many of our leading staples 
is so low that they cannot be transported to the markets of 
Europe, or even to our own seaboard, and leave a margin for 
profits, by reason of the excessive rates of transportation. 

481 



4^2 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

During the War but little attention was given to the great 
increase in the price of freights, as the price of produce was 
proportionately high ; but we look in vain for any abatement, 
now that we are obliged to accept less than half the former 
prices for much that we raise. 

We look in vain for any diminution in the carrying rates, to 
correspond with the rapidly declining prices of the means of 
living, and of materials for constructing boats, cars, engines, and 
tracks ; but on the other hand, we see a total ignoring of that 
rule of reciprocity between the carrying and producing interests 
which prevails in every other department of trade and commerce. 

Does it not behoove us, then, to inquire earnestly how long 
we can stand this descending scale on the one hand, and the 
ascending on the other, and which party must inevitably and 
speedily go to the wall ? 

I by no means counsel hostility to the carrying interest — 
it is one of the producer's best friends ; but, like the fire that 
cooks our food and warms our dwelling, it may also become the 
hardest of masters. The fire fiend laughs as he escapes from 
our control, and in an hour licks up and sweeps away the 
accumulations of years of toil. 

As we cherish the fire fiend, so we welcome the clangor of 
the carrier fiend as he approaches our dwellings, opening up 
communications with the busy marts of trade. But it needs no 
great stretch of imagination to hear also the each ! each ! cachi- 
nations of the carrier fiend as he speeds beyond our reach, and 
leaving no alternative but compliance with his exorbitant demands. 

Many of us are not aware of the gigantic proportions the 
carrying interest is assuming. Less than forty years ago the 
first railroad fire was kindled on this continent, [but] which now, 
like a mighty conflagration, is crackling and roaring over every 
prairie and through every mountain gorge. The first year pro- 
duced fifteen miles ; the last, five thousand.^ 

On the same mammoth scale goes on the work of organiza- 
tion and direction. By the use of almost unlimited means it 
enlists in its service the finest talents of the land as officers, 

1 The total mileage, which was about 30,000 in i860, increased to 
52,000 in 1870 and to 87,800 in 1880. 



Twefity Years of Republican Supremacy 483 

attorneys, agents, and lobbyists ; gives free passes and splendid 
entertainments to the representatives of the people ; and even 
transports whole legislatures into exceeding high mountains, 
showing them the kingdoms of the world, with lavish promises 
of reward for fealty and support ; witness its land grants and 
franchises ^ secured from the powers that be, such as no similar 
interest ever acquired even in the Old World. . . . 

I fancy I hear the response : '' These things are so, but what 
can we do ? " Rather, my friends, what can we not do ? What 
power can withstand the combined and concentrated force of 
the producing interest of this Republic ? But what avails our 
strength if, like Polyphemus in the fable, we are unable to use 
it for want of eyesight? or like a mighty army without disci- 
pline, every man fighting on his own hook ? or worse, reposing 
in fancied security while Delilahs of the enemy have well nigh 
shorn away the last lock of strength ? In this respect we con- 
stitute a solitary exception, every other interest having long 
since protected itself by union and organization. 

As a measure calculated to bring all interested, as it were, 
within speaking distance, and as a stepping stone to an efficient 
organization, I propose that the farmers of the great north-west 
concentrate their efforts, power, and means, as the great trans- 
portation companies have done theirs, and accomplish something 
instead of frittering away their efforts in doing nothing. 

And to this end I suggest a convention of those opposed to 
the present tendency to monopoly and extortionate charges by 
our transportation companies, to meet at Bloomington, Illinois, 
on the twentieth day of April next, for the purpose of discus- 
sion, and the appointment of a committee to raise funds to be 
expended in the employment of the highest order of legal talent, 
to put in form of report and argument an exposition of the 
rights, wrongs, interests, and injuries (with their remedies) of 

1 Before the year 1872 our government had granted to the railroads 
155,000,000 acres of pubHc land — a tract equal to New England, New- 
York, and Pennsylvania combined. About $200,000,000 had been granted 
as subsidies by state legislatures, besides private subscriptions to the 
stocks and bonds of railway companies (cf. E. R. Johnson, American 
Railway Transportation, p. 314). 



484 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

the producing masses of the north-west, and lay it before the 
authorities of each state, and of the general government. Con- 
gress is now in session, and the constitutional convention of 
this state will then again be convened. Farmers, now is the 
time for action ! 

Kansas followed Illinois in the agitation for farmers' 
rights against the railroads. Then other Western states 
took up the cause. At a National Agricultural Congress 
held at Indianapolis, May 28, 1873, the following resolu- 
tions were adopted : 

Whereas, we recognize the railways of the country as an effec- 
tual means of developing its agricultural resources, and as hav- 
ing an interest, common and inseparable, with the country 
through which they pass ; and, whereas, we have in times past 
fostered and aided them by liberal charters and concessions, 
made by public and private parties, and still desire to encourage 
further development of the railway system ; therefore 

Resolved, that a fair degree of reciprocity would suggest that 
corporations having a common interest and public aid, should 
in their turn endeavor to subserve the interest of the country 
through which they pass, by charging fair rates of freights, and 
by the equitable and just treatment of all localities along their 
lines. . . . 

Resolved, that we recommend all farmers to withhold their 
voices and their aid from railway corporations, unless it be fully 
conceded and agreed that corporations so aided are subject to 
regulation by the power incorporating them, and will not, after 
receiving the advantages conferred by the public authority, claim 
the immunities of a private corporation. . . . 

Resolved, that a railway, being practically a monopoly, con- 
trolling the transportation of nearly all the country through which 
it passes ; and that as competition, except at a few points, can- 
not be relied on to fix rates, therefore it becomes the duty of 
the state to fix reasonable maximum rates, affording a fair re- 
muneration to the transporter, and without being an onerous 
charge to the producer and consumer. 



Twenty Years of Repttblican Siip^rniacy 485 

Resolved, that inasmuch as Belgium has succeeded in regu- 
lating the rates upon railways by government lines, we ask an 
investigation of the proposition to control the rates upon exist- 
ing railways by trunk lines built and controlled by the state 
authorities and run at fixed uniform and cheap rates. 

Resolved, that the consolidation of parallel lines of railway is 
contrary to public policy, and should be prohibited by law. 

Resolved, that wherever a railway corporation owns or con- 
trols a line or lines in two or more states, it is the right and duty 
of the general government to regulate the rates of freight and 
fare upon such lines, under the constitutional power to regulate 
commerce between the states.-^ 

Resolved, that we commend the thorough organization of the 
farmers of the country in local, county, and state organizations, 
for the purpose of reforming the great abuses and dealing out 
equal and exact justice to all men. 

The resumption of specie payment, or the pledge of 106. The re- 
the United States to pay in coin at their full face value all Jp^fe pay° 
the notes issued by the government during the stress of the "^ent, 1869- 
Civil War, was attended with grave embarrassments. The 
debtor farmer communities of the West, who had done 

1 Article I, Sect. VIII, par. 3. The general government had already be- 
gun to notice this question of the control of the railroads. A few months 
before the Indianapolis convention, President Grant, in his annual Mes- 
sage of December 2, 1872, had written: "The attention of Congress 
will be called during its present session to various enterprises for the 
more certain and cheaper transportation of the constantly increasing 
surplus of Western and Southern products to the Atlantic seaboard. 
The subject is one that will force itself upon the legislative branch of 
the Government sooner or later, and I suggest, therefore, that immedi- 
ate steps be taken to gain all available information to ensure equable 
and just legislation." — Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presi- 
dents, Vol. VII, p. 195. In spite of the opposition of the railways and 
the insistence of their counsel that Congress had no power to meddle 
with their affairs, a committee on railways and canals reported, through 
its chairman, G. H. McCrary, in January, 1874, affirming the power of 
Congress to regulate commerce between the states. The result of long 
debates on the subject was the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 
18S7 (See Muzzey, An American History, p. 542). 



[519] 



486 History of the Repicblic since the Civil War 

magnificent work in building up the nation's prosperity 
after the war, had secured their loans, placed their mort- 
gages, rated their land and property valuations, and regu- 
lated their general business affairs on the basis of the value 
of the paper currency. Suddenly to raise the currency 
standard to the basis of the value of gold and silver coin 
would mean a great hards^iip for them, for it would re- 
quire them to pay their debts in a currency which had a 
market value of only about three fourths of its face value. 
John Sherman of Ohio, of the Senate committee on 
finance, who wished to see the credit of the United States 
fully maintained in the eyes of the gold-standard countries 
of the world, and who eventually, as Secretary of the 
Treasury in President Hayes's cabinet, accomplished the 
full resumption of specie payments (January i, 1879), 
gave voice to his misgivings of too hasty action in altering 
the standard of our currency in the following speech in 
the Senate, January 27, 1869 : 

Mr. Sherman. Mr. President 



Mr. Davis. ... I suggest to the honorable Senator that my 
proposition be read with a view to his having it before him in 
connection with the bill on which he proposes to speak. 

The President p7'o te?npore. The motion of the Senator from 
Kentucky will be read if there be no objection. [The Chief 
Clerk read the proposed motion, which was to . . . report a bill 
embodying the substance of the following propositions 

1°. Gold and silver coin is the measure of par established by 
the world and adopted by the Constitution of the United States 
for all property, values, debts, and other pecuniary liabilities; 
and the Government of the United States having, on the sale 
of the bonds which constitute the bulk of the national debt, re- 
ceived greatly less, when measured by the par of gold and silver, 
than their nominal amount, said bonds should be discharged by 
the payment in coin of their value. . . . 



Twenty Years of Republican Supremacy 487 

2°. That all other debts and pecuniary liabilities created or 
incurred since the issue of legal-tender notes, and which do not 
express to be payable in gold or silver coin, were contemplated 
and intended by the parties to be met and paid in currency ; and 
on the general resumption of specie payments, such debts and 
liabilities should be discharged by the payment in gold and silver 
coin of their value. . . . 

3°. That the annual expenditures of the Government should 
be reduced within the following general scale: for the civil 
service $45,000,000; pensions and Indians $30,000,000; De- 
partment of War $25,000,000; Navy Department $20,000,000; 
contingencies and miscellaneous $10,000,000; and interest on 
the public debt $50,000,000. And the whole surplus of the 
revenue should be faithfully applied to the extinguishment of 
the public debt. 

4°. The taxes which are now so grievous a burden upon the 
people of the United States should be reduced at least $100,- 
000,000 annually . . . and a day within three years should be 
named for the general resumption of specie payments.] 

Mr. Sherman. Mr. President, I suppose it is expected of 
me to state in general terms the reasons that influenced the 
Committee on Finance to report this measure. . . . 

And in the first place it is but right to recall the embarrass- 
ments of the Committee, not only from the intrinsic difficulties 
of the subjects referred to us, but from the great diversity of 
opinion that exists in all parts of the country as to the proper 
measures to be adopted. . . . 

In order to consider this measure properly we must have a clear 
perception of what is sought to be accomplished. The object 
we have in view is to appreciate our currency to the standard 
of gold as rapidly as the public interest will allow. Our present 
currency, or " lawful money," consists of notes of the United 
States [greenbacks], and these are legal tender in payments of 
all debts. Based upon them, and of equal value with them, is 
a subsidiary currency of notes of national banks, and these are 
redeemable in United States notes and receivable in payment 
of taxes. We have also a form of demand notes, convertible at 
the will of the holder into lawful money, called 3 % certificates. 



488 History of the Rcpiiblic since the Civil War 

We have also a fractional paper currency which is convertible 
into lawful money on demand. These four species of notes 
compose the paper currency of the country, and the amount 
of each is stated as follows : 

United States notes (greenbacks) . . $356,021,073 

National Bank notes 299,806,565 

Three percent certificates 55,865,000 

Fractional currency 34,215,715 

In all $745,908,353 

All this currency is by law at par. . . . But in truth and in fact 
it is not at par in standard money of the world. One dollar of 
it has only the same purchasing power as seventy-four cents 
in gold. Gold, which is real money, not the representative of 
money, but money itself, of intrinsic value, — gold is demon- 
etized by the law, cannot be collected in the courts, and, like 
cotton or wheat, is treated as a commodity whose value is 
measured by what we call ^^ lawful money." 

Now, it seems to me that the first step in our investigation 
should be to abandon the attempt to reason from a false stand- 
ard. We must, to begin with recognize the immutable law of 
currency ; and that is, there is but one par, and that par is gold. 
Since the earliest records of humanity gold and silver have been 
employed as the equivalent for effecting exchanges. From Solon 
to our day innumerable attempts have been made to substitute 
something else as money, but in spite of all, gold and silver have 
maintained their exclusive dominion as the money of mankind 

No nation can permanently adopt a standard of value that 
will not be controlled and regulated by the standard of gold. 
No degree of isolation, no expedient of legislation, can save any 
nation which maintains any intercourse with foreign nations from 
the operation of this supreme law. Like the tides of the ocean, 
or the movements of the planets, it is beyond our jurisdiction. . . . 
It is utterly idle for a commercial people like the United States, 
with a foreign commerce of $800,000,000 annually, with citi- 
zens trading in every port of the world, and receiving annually 
400,000 immigrants, to escape from the operation of this primary 
law of trade. Different nations have tried various expedients to 



Twenty Years of Republican Supremacy 489 

evade it, and have always failed. For centuries gold and silver 
coins were clipped and alloyed, but it only took more of them 
to buy a certain commodity. In modem times paper money or 
credit has been substituted for real money. Laws compelled the 
people to take them as real money. As long as this money did 
not exceed the amount of real money in the country it operated 
well. It promoted exchanges and gave great activity to enter- 
prises, and its nominal value was the same as its real value. But 
when the paper money was increased, or the gold exported, the 
paper money depreciated ; it had less purchasable power, prices 
rose, and either the paper money became demonetized, was 
rejected and repudiated, or the false standard was advanced 
in value to the gold standard. . . . 

During our civil war, both the United States and the rebels 
undertook to make paper not merely the representative of money, 
but real money. The paper money of the rebels followed the 
course of continental money and French assignafs. Ours, care- 
fully limited in amount, supported by heavy taxes and by great 
resources, is still called lawful money ; but after all its value is 
daily measured by the gold standard. It is only the substitute 
of money, to be paid at a future day, and is not real money. . . . 

If then gold is the only true standard of money, why should 
we not commence our financial measures by restoring it to its 
place as the legal standard of money ? Why not allow our citi- 
zens to base their future contracts on gold ? Why not enforce 
these contracts in the courts as legal and valid ? . . . If this ques- 
tion affected alone the Government of the United States, we 
might resume specie payments very soon. . . . And if the burden 
of resumption fell alone upon the national banks the task would 
be an easy one. Their securities, deposited with the Treasurer 
of the United States, are now nearly equal in gold to the amount 
of their circulation. . . . 

But the distress caused by an appreciation of the currency 
falls mainly on the debtor class ; others suffer only by his in- 
ability to pay. What does specie payment mean to a debtor ? It 
means the payment of $135 where he has agreed to pay $100, 
or, which is the same thing, the payment of $100 where he has 
agreed to pay $74. Where he has purchased propert)^ and paid 



490 Histo7y of the Republic since tJie Civil War 

one fourth of it, it means the loss of the property ; it means the 
addition of one fourth to all the currency debts in the United 
States. A measure to require a debtor now to pay his debt in 
gold, or in currency equivalent to gold requires him to pay 135 
bushels of wheat when he agreed to pay 100, and if this appre- 
ciation is extended through a period of three years, it requires 
him to pay an interest of 12% in addition to the rate he has 
agreed to pay. When we consider the enormous indebtedness 
of a new country like ours, where capital is scarce and where 
credit has been substituted in the place of capital, it presents a 
difficulty that may well cause us to pause. We may see that the 
chasm must be crossed, but it will make us wary of our foot- 
steps. Good faith and public policy demand that we appreciate 
our currency to gold, but in the process we must be careful that 
bankruptcy, distress, and want do not fall upon our citizens who 
have based their obligations upon your broken promises. The 
debtors of this country include the active, enterprising, energetic 
men in all the various employments of life. It is a serious propo- 
sition to change their contracts so as in effect to require them 
to pay one third more than they agreed to pay. They have not 
paused in their business to study questions of political economy. 
They have based their operations upon this money, which you 
have declared to be lawful money. You may change its relative 
value, but in doing so you should give them a reasonable oppor- 
tunity to change their contracts so as to adapt them to the new 
standards of value you may prescribe for them. . . . 

Let no man deal with this question with the hasty impulse of 
first impressions, for he will only illustrate his own folly. Let no 
man be too confident of his own opinions until he has examined 
those of others, and he will then find that many have travelled 
this path before him ; but no man has yet found an easy road 
to the resumption of specie payments. 

Four years after the above speech in opposition to fix- 
ing a definite date for the resumption of specie payment 
Senator Sherman believed that the time had come when 
immediate practical steps toward resumption could be 



Twenty Years of Republican Supremacy 491 

taken without too great hardship to the debtor classes. In 
a speech in the Senate on January 16, 1873, he com- 
mitted himself to the resumption policy. 

The restoration of our currency to a specie standard is an 
object of primary importance. The present condition of our 
currency governs and controls all other questions of political 
economy, and until we make it conform to and be the equiva- 
lent of money — of gold coin, the recognized standard of money 
among all the civilized nations — we cannot rest upon a solid 
basis for any kind of business or for public or private credit. 
Every man now buys or sells upon a fluctuating standard of 
measurement. Every man who borrows feels that he may be com- 
pelled to pay in a different money than he receives. Every pro- 
ducer feels that [in addition] to the uncertainty of supply and 
demand he must also speculate on the uncertainty of the kind 
and value of money with which he is to be paid. . . , The 
people at large, while boasting of their restored credit, of vast 
payments on their public debt, yet must feel that the public 
debt, held by them in the form of United States notes, is less 
valuable than gold, which it promises to pay ; is less valuable 
than any other form of public debt. . . . 

Again, all the existing laws authorizing United States notes 
and bank notes are based on the theory of specie payments. 
The notes were only issued, however, during war, under a sus- 
pension of specie payments ; there was no medium of payment 
except the public credit. . . . Ordinarily the functions of a 
Government in furnishing money are limited to stamping on 
gold and silver of a certain weight and fineness its intrinsic 
value. Here its duty ends. But in war this process of coin- 
ing did not meet the public necessities, and the United States 
coined its credit into money. . . . This money is but another 
form of public debt, a promise to pay specific quantities of 
gold and silver. . . . 

If, then, public 'faith, public policy, and the spirit of our laws 
demand that our currency be restored to the specie standard, it 
would seem that the only remaining inquiry should be. What 
is the best way to resume ? But here we meet the objections 



492 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

of many business men, the most active and enterprising of our 
people, who tell us that specie payments with them adds largely 
to the burden of their debts. . . . Some tell us they are prepared 
to meet the gradual approach to specie payments caused by the 
increased business and credit of the country, while others tell us 
that the country needs more currency; that its growth in popu- 
lation, expansion in business and new enterprises, render an 
increase of currency indispensable. The effect of any measure 
upon the interests of active business men should be carefully 
studied, but individual hardship is not sufficient reason for a 
violation of public faith, or a disregard of the general interests 
or policy of the whole country. . . . This argument of hardship 
will apply forever. If we are controlled by it we can never pay 
our promises. The lapse of time will not make it easier. Our 
financial condition is now so strong that we can afford to do 
right, and yet in such a way as to injure in the least possible 
degree those who contracted debts on a currency basis. . . . 

Again, a specie standard will also bring gold and silver coin 
into actual use. The amount now hoarded has been variously 
estimated, and, with that deposited in the Treasury and in circu- 
lation in California, cannot be less than $200,000,000. ... I 
therefore conclude that the fears of evil results from a specie 
standard are greatly exaggerated ; that there will be no contrac- 
tion of the currency, no disturbance of real values, no sus- 
pension of business, but that our present United States and 
bank notes will pass as usual in the ordinary exchanges of 
life, measuring the value of all property . . . equal to the real 
money of the world, and with no taint of dishonor or deprecia- 
tion about it. . . . 

A careful consideration of the whole subject leads me to the 
conviction that the simplest and most expedient measure is to 
declare by law that on and after the i'' day of January next 
[1874] the United States will redeem its notes either with coin 
or, at the option of the Secretary of the Treasury, with its bonds 
of convenient denominations bearing five percent interest in 
coin. This will be a recognition by the United States of its 
solemn pledge, made on March 18, 1868, that it will at the 
earliest practicable period redeem its notes in coin. . . . 



Twejity Years of Republican Supremacy 493 

It was not inconsistency in Senator Sherman that led 
him, after opposing resumption of specie payments in 
1869, to fix a date for resumption in 1873. He was 
always theoretically in favor of the measure, only he be- 
lieved that the time was not ripe for it at the earlier date.^ 
The panic of 1873 ensued, and resumption was delayed 
five years longer. When it was finally accomplished Sher- 
man himself was Secretary of the Treasury. In order to 
accumulate gold for the redemption of the greenbacks 
he invited subscriptions to United States bonds. 

Treasury Department 
Washington, D.C., January 16, 1878 

The Secretary of the Treasury hereby gives notice that, from 
the 26^^ instant, and until further notice, he will receive subscrip- 
tions for the four percent funded loan of the United States, 
in denominations as stated below, at par and accrued interest 
in coin. 

The bonds are redeemable July 1907, and bear interest, pay- 
able quarterly, on the first day of January, April, July, and Octo- 
ber, of each year, and are exempt from the payment of taxes or 
duties to the United States, as well as from taxation in any form 
by or under state, municipal, or local authority. 

The subscriptions may be made for coupon bonds of $50, 
$100, $500, and $1,000, and for registered bonds of $50, $100, 
$500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000. 

Two percent of the purchase money must accompany the 
subscription ; the remainder may be paid at the pleasure of the 

1 He says in his " Recollections," for example : " At this time [1865] 
there was a wide difference of opinion between Secretary McCulloch 
and myself as to the financial policy of the government in respect to 
the public debt and the currency. . . . Both of us were in favor of 
specie payments, he by contraction, and I by the gradual advancement 
of the credit and value of our currency to the specie standard. With 
him specie payment was the primary object. With me it was a second- 
ary object, to follow the advancing credit of the government." — John 
Sherman, Recollections, Vol. I, pp. 375-376. 



494 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

purchaser, either at the time of subscription, or thirty days there- 
after, with interest on the amount of subscription, at the rate of 
4% per annum, to date of payment. 

Upon the receipt of full payment, the bonds will be trans- 
mitted, free of charge, to the subscribers, and a commission of 
one fourth of one per cent will be allowed upon the amount of 
subscriptions, but no commission will be paid upon any single 
subscription less than $i,ooo. 

Forms of application will be furnished by the treasurer at 
Washington, the assistant treasurers at Baltimore, Boston, 
Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, 
St. Louis, and San Francisco, and by the national banks and 
bankers generally. . . . 

The interest on the registered bonds will be paid by check, 
issued by the treasurer of the United States, to the order of the 
holder, and mailed to his address. . . . 

Payments for the bonds may be made in coin to the treas- 
urer of the United States at Washington, or the assistant treas- 
urers at Baltimore, Boston, etc. , . . 

To promote the convenience of subscribers, the department 
will also receive, in lieu of coin, called bonds of the United 
States, coupons past due or maturing within thirty days, or gold 
certificates issued under the act of March 3, 1863, and national 
banks will be designated as depositories under the provisions of 
section 5153, Revised Statutes of the United States, to receive 
deposits on account of this loan, under regulations to be hereafter 

P ■ John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury 



The Party Revolution of 1884 

107. Blaine's On December 21, 1881, the Senate and the House 

GarfieiVpeb- P^^sed resolutions for a memorial service for the martyred 

ruary27, 1882 President, James A. Garfield, to be held in the Hall of 

[524] Representatives, February 27, 1882, to which were invited 

the President, the ex-presidents, the cabinet officers, the 

justices of the Supreme Court, the governors of states, 



Twenty Years of Republican Supremacy 495 

the diplomatic corps, and prominent officers of the army 
and navy.^ Before this distinguished audience James G. 
Blaine, the most brilliant orator of the House, pronounced 
the eulogy on his late chief and dearest political friend. 

Mr. President : For the second time in this generation the 
great departments of the Government of the United States are as- 
sembled in the Hall of Representatives to do honor to the memory 
of a murdered President. Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty 
struggle in which the passions of men had been deeply stirred. 
The tragical termination of his great life added but another to 
the lengthened succession of horrors v^hich had marked so many 
lintels with the blood of the first-born. Garfield was slain in a 
day of peace, when brother had been reconciled to brother, and 
when anger and hate had been banished from the land. . . . 

Garfield's early opportunities for securing an education were 
extremely limited, and yet were sufficient to develop in him an 
intense desire to learn. He could read at three years of age, 
and each winter he had the advantage of the district school. He 
read all the books to be found within the circle of his acquaint- 
ance ; some of them he got by heart. While yet in childhood 
he was a constant student of the Bible, and became familiar 
with its literature. The dignity and earnestness of his speech in 
his maturer life gave evidence of this early training. At eighteen 
years of age he was able to teach school, and thenceforward his 
ambition was to obtain a college education. To this end he bent 
all his efforts, working in the harvest field, at the carpenter's 
bench, and, in the winter season, teaching the common schools 
of the neighborhood. While thus laboriously occupied he found 
time to prosecute his studies, and was so successful that at 
twenty-two years of age he was able to enter the junior class at 
Williams College, then under the presidency of the venerable 
and honored Mark Hopkins. . . . 

1 On the beautiful engraved card of invitation appeared the signa- 
tures of the chairmen of the Senate and House committees on the 
memorial service : John Sherman for the Senate, and for the House 
"William McKinley, Jr., destined himself thirty years later to fall as the 
third presidential victim of the assassin's bullet. 



49^ History of the Republic since the Civil War 

From his graduation at Williams onward, to the hour of his 
tragic death, Garfield's career was eminent and exceptional. 
Slowly working through his educational period, receiving his 
diploma when he was twenty-four years of age, he seemed at 
one bound to spring into conspicuous and brilliant success. 
Within six years he was successively President of a College, 
State Senator of Ohio, Major General of the Army of the 
United States, and Representative elect to the National Con- 
gress. A combination of honors so varied, so elevated, within 
a period so brief, and to a man so young, is without precedent 
or parallel in the history of the country. . . . 

With possibly a single exception, Garfield was the youngest 
member in the House when he entered, and was but seven 
years from his college graduation. But he had not been in his 
seat sixty days, before his ability was recognized and his place 
conceded. He stepped to the front with the confidence of one 
who belonged there. The House was crowded with strong 
men of both parties ; . . . but among them all none grew so 
rapidly, so firmly, as Garfield. As is said by Trevelyan of his 
parliamentary hero [Fox], Garfield succeeded " because all the 
world in concert could not have kept him in the background, 
and because when once in the front, he played his part with a 
prompt intrepidity and a commanding ease that were but the 
outward symptoms of the immense reserves of energy on which 
it was in his power to draw." Indeed, the apparently reserved 
force which Garfield possessed was one of his great character- 
istics. He never did so well but that it seemed he could easily 
have done better. He never expended so much strength but 
that he appeared to be holding additional power at call. This 
is one of the happiest and rarest distinctions of an effective 
debater, and often counts for as much, in persuading an assem- 
bly, as the eloquent and elaborate argument. . . . 

His speeches are numerous, many of them brilliant, all of 
them well studied, carefully phrased, and exhaustive of the sub- 
ject under consideration. . . . Indeed, if no other authority 
were accessible, his speeches in the House of Representatives 
from December 1863 to June 1880 would give a well-connected 
history and complete defense of the important legislation of 



Izvcnty Years of Republic an Supremacy 497 

the seventeen eventful years that constitute his parliamentary 
life 

Garfield's nomination to the Presidency, while not predicted 
or anticipated, was not a surprise to the country. ... As a 
candidate Garfield grew steadily in popular favor. . . . One 
aspect of Garfield's candidacy was unprecedented. Never before, 
in the history of partisan contests in this country, had a success- 
ful Presidential candidate spoken freely on passing events and 
current issues. To attempt anything of the kind seemed novel, 
rash, and even desperate. The older class of voters recalled 
the unfortunate Alabama letter in which Mr. Clay was supposed 
to have signed his political death-warrant. . . . The younger 
voters had seen Mr. Greeley in a series of rigorous and original 
addresses preparing the pathway for his own defeat. Unmind- 
ful of these warnings, unheeding the advice of friends, Garfield 
spoke to large crowds as he journeyed to and from New York 
in August, to a great multitude in that city, to delegations and 
deputations of every kind that called at Mentor during the sum- 
mer and autumn. With innumerable critics, watchful and eager 
to catch a phrase that might be turned into odium or ridicule, 
or a sentence that might be distorted to his own or his party's 
injury, Garfield did not trip or halt in any one of his seventy 
speeches. . . . 

Garfield's ambition for the success of his Administration was 
high. With strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he 
was in no danger of attempting rash experiments or of resort- 
ing to the empiricism of statesmanship. But he believed that 
renewed and closer attention should be given to the questions 
affecting the material interests and commercial prospects of 
fifty millions of people. . . . He believed with equal confidence 
that an essential forerunner to a new era of national progress 
must be a feeling of contentment in every section of the Union, 
and a generous belief that the benefits and burdens of govern- 
ment would be common to all. Himself a conspicuous illustra- 
tion of what ability and ambition may do under Republican 
institutions, he loved his country with a passion of patriotic 
devotion, and every waking thought was given to her advance- 
ment. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he looked 



49^ History of the Repnblic since the Civil War 

to the destiny and influence of the United States with the philo- 
sophic composure of Jefferson, and the demonstrative confidence 
of John Adams. . , . 

On the morning of Saturday, July second, the President was 
a contented and happy man — not in an ordinary degree, but 
joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On the way to the railroad 
station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the 
beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and a 
keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful 
and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial 
his Administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in 
popular favor, and destined to grow stronger ; that grave diffi- 
culties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely 
passed ; that trouble lay behind and not before him. ... No 
foreboding of evil haunted him ; no slightest premonition of 
danger clouded his sky.-^ His terrible fate was upon him in an 
instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the 
years stretching out peacefully before him. The next, he lay 
wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, 
to silence, and the grave. 

Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no 
cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the 
red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this 
world's interests, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, 
into the visible presence of death — and he did not quail. . . . 
Before him, desolation and great darkness ! And his soul was 
not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, pro- 
found, and universal sympathy. Masterful, in his mortal weak- 
ness, he became the center of the nation's love, enshrined in 
the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy 

1 A certain Mr. Hudson of Detroit had warned John Sherman of 
plans for the president-elect's assassination in November, 1880. Gar- 
field, on hearing the warning, replied to Sherman : "I do not think 
there is any serious danger in the direction to which he refers, though 
I am receiving what I suppose to be the usual number of threatening 
letters on that subject. Assassination can no more be guarded against 
than death by lightning, and it is best not to worry about either." — 
E. B. Andrews, The Last Quarter Century in the United States, 
Vol. I, p. 329. 



Twenty Years of Republican Stipremacy 499 

could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press 
alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing 
tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of 
the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple 
resignation he bowed to the divine decree. 

As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. 
The stately mansion of power had been to him the weary hos- 
pital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, 
from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its 
hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore 
the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or 
to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, 
within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face 
tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully 
upon the ocean's changing wonders ; on its far sails, whitening 
in the morning light ; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to 
break and die beneath the noonday sun ; on the red clouds of 
evening arching low to the horizon ; on the serene and shining 
pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a 
mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. 
Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard 
the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already 
upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning. 

Less than a year after the assassination of President 108. The 
Garfield a Senate committee made the following report ^^^ ®^®" 
on the disgraceful condition of our civil service under [525] 
the long-continued reign of the '' spoils S3^stem," which 
Theodore Roosevelt later declared to be ''the most potent 
of all the forces tending to bring about the degradation 
of our politics." ^ 

The growth of our country from 350,000 square miles to 
4,000,000, the increase of population from 3,000,000 to 50,- 
000,000, the addition of twenty-five states, imperial in size and 

1 Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals and Other Essays (No. VII), 
p. 134, reprinted from Scribiier's Magazine, August, 1895. 



500 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

capabilities, have caused a corresponding development of the 
machinery and faculties of the government. In the beginning 
— even so late as 1801 — there were 906 post-offices; now 
there are 44,848. Then there were 69 custom-houses ; now 
there are 135. Then our ministers to foreign countries were 
4 ; now they are 2iZ' Then our consuls were 63 ; now they 
are 728. Then less than 1000 men sufficed to administer the 
government; now more than 100,000 are needed. Then one 
man might personally know, appoint on their merits, supervise 
the performance of their duties, and for sufficient cause remove 
all officers ; now no single human being, however great his in- 
telligence, discrimination, industry, endurance, devotion, even if 
relieved of every other duty, can possibly, unaided, select and 
retain in official station those best fitted to discharge the many 
and varied and delicate functions of the government. 

It has come to pass that the work of paying political debts 
and discharging political obligations, of rewarding personal 
friends and punishing personal foes, is the first to confront 
each President on assuming the duties of his office, and is ever 
present with him even to the last moment of his official term, 
giving him no rest and little time for the transaction of other 
business, or for the study of any higher or grander problems of 
statesmanship. He is compelled to give daily audience to those 
who personally seek place or to the army of those who back 
them. He is to do what some predecessor of his has left un- 
done, or to undo what others before him have done ; to put 
this man up and that man down, as the system of political 
rewards and punishments shall seem to him to demand. . . . 

The office of Chief Magistrate has undergone in practice a 
radical change. The President of the Republic created by the 
Constitution in the beginning, and the Chief Magistrate of today, 
are two entirely different public functionaries. There has grown 
up such a perversion of the duties of that high office, such a 
prostitution of it to ends unworthy of the great idea of its 
creation, imposing burdens so grievous, and so degrading of 
all the faculties and functions becoming its occupant, that a 
change has already come in the character of the government 
itself, which, if not corrected, will be permanent and disastrous. 



Twenty Years of Repiiblican Supremacy 501 

Thus hampered and beset, the Chief Magistrate of this nation 
wears out his term and his life in the petty services of party, 
and in the bestowal of the favors its ascendency commands. 
He gives daily audience to beggars for place, and sits in judg- 
ment upon the party claims of contestants. 

The Executive Mansion is besieged, if not sacked, and its 
corridors and chambers are crowded every day with the ever- 
changing but never-ending throng. Every Chief Magistrate, 
since the evil has grown to its present proportions, has cried out 
for deliverance. Physical endurance, even, is taxed beyond its 
power. More than one President is believed to have lost his life 
from this cause. The spectacle exhibited of the Chief Magistrate 
of this great nation, feeding, like a keeper, his flock, the hungry, 
clamorous, crowding, jostling multitude which daily gathers 
around the dispenser of patronage, is humiliating to the patriotic 
citizen interested alone in national progress and grandeur. . . . 

The malign influence of political domination in appointments 
to office is wide-spread, and reaches out from the President 
himself to all possible means of approach to the appointing 
power. It poisons the very air we breathe. No Congressman 
in accord with the dispenser of power can wholly escape it. It 
is ever present. When he awakes in the morning it is at his 
door, and when he retires at night it haunts his chamber. It 
goes before him, it follows after him, and it meets him on the 
way. It levies contributions on all the relationships of a Con- 
gressman's life, summons kinship and friendship and interest 
to its aid, and imposes on him a work which is never finished 
and from which there is no release. Time is consumed, strength 
is exhausted, the mind is absorbed, and the vital forces of the 
legislator, mental as well as physical, are spent in the never- 
ending struggle for offices. 

In his first message to Congress, December 6, 1881, 
President Arthur, repeating the language of his letter of 
acceptance of the vice presidency, urged that " original 
appointments should be based upon ascertained fitness," 
that "the term of office should be stable," and that ''the 



502 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

investigation of all complaints and the punishment of all 
official misconduct should be prompt and thorough." ^ 
While distrusting competitive examinations as the sole 
test of a candidate's fitness for office, he nevertheless 
promised that '' if Congress should deem it advisable at 
the present session to establish competitive tests for ad- 
mission to the service," he would give the measure his 
"earnest support." ^ On the very same day Senator 
George H. Pendleton of Ohio introduced a bill for the 
reform of the civil service, which was finally passed 
through the House and signed by President Arthur in 
January, 1883. 

Be it enacted . . . That the President is authorized to appoint, 
by and with the advice of the Senate, three persons, not more 
than two of whom shall be adherents of the same party, as 
Civil Service Commissioners, and said three commissioners shall 
constitute the United States Civil Service Commission. . . . 

Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of said commissioners : 

First. To aid the President, as he may request, in preparing 
suitable rules for carrying this act into effect, and when said 
rules shall have been promulgated it shall be the duty of all 
officers of the United States in the departments and offices to 
which any such rules may relate to aid, in all proper ways, in 
carrying said rules . . . into effect. 

Second. And, among other things, said rules shall provide 
and declare, as nearly as the conditions of good administration 
will warrant, as follows : 

First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the fit- 
ness of applicants for the public service now classified or to be 
classified hereunder. . . . 

Second, that all the offices, places, and employments so ar- 
ranged or to be arranged in classes shall be filled by selections 

1 Richardson, ed. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII, 
p. 60. 

2 Ibid. p. 63. 



Twenty Years of Republican Supremacy 503 

according to grade from among those graded highest as the 
results of such competitive examinations. 

Third, appointments to the public service aforesaid in the 
departments at Washington shall be apportioned among the 
several States and Territories and the District of Columbia 
upon the basis of population as ascertained at the last pre- 
ceding census. . . . 

Fourth, that there shall be a period of probation before any 
absolute appointment or employment aforesaid. 

Fifth, that no person in the public service is for that reason 
under any obligations to contribute to any political fund, or to 
render any political service, and that he will not be removed or 
otherwise prejudiced for refusing to do so. 

Sixth, that no person in said service has any right to use his 
official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any 
person or body. . . . 

Third. Said Commission shall, subject to the rules that may 
be made by the President, make regulations for and have control 
of, such examinations, and, through its members or the examin- 
ers, it shall supervise and preserve the records of the same. . . . 

Fifth. Said Commission shall make an annual report to the 
President for transmission to Congress, showing . . . any sug- 
gestions it may approve for the more effectual accomplishment 
of the purposes of this act. [Sees. 3-5 provide for details of 
holding examinations, and for punishment by fines not exceed- 
ing $1000 or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, for 
falsifying the results of such examinations.] 

Sec. 6. That within sixty days after the passage of this act, 
it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury ... to 
arrange in classes the several clerks and persons employed by 
the collector, naval officer, surveyor, and appraisers ... at their 
respective offices in each customs district where the whole num- 
ber of such clerks and persons shall be all together as many 
as fifty. And thereafter, from time to time, on the direction of 
the President, the Secretary shall make the like classification or 
arrangement of clerks ... in any other customs district. . . . 

Within said sixty days, it shall be the duty of the Postmaster 
General ... to separately arrange in classes the several clerks 



504 History of tJic Rep7iblic since the Civil War 

etc. ... at each postoffice, or under any Postmaster of the United 
States, where the whole number of said clerks and persons shall 
together amount to as many as fifty. . . . 

Sec. 7. That after the expiration of six months from the 
passage of this act no officer or clerk shall be appointed . . . 
until he has passed an examination, or is shown to be specially 
exempted. . . . 

Sec. 8. That no person habitually using intoxicating beverages 
to excess shall be appointed to or retained in any office, appoint- 
ment, or employment to which the provisions of this act are 
applicable. . . . 

Sec. 10. That no recommendation of any person who shall 
apply for office or place under the provisions of this act which 
may be given by any senator or member of the House of 
Representatives, except as to the character or residence of 
the applicant, shall be received or considered by any person 
concerned in making any examination or appointment under 
this act. 

Sec. II. That no Senator, or Representative, or Territorial 
Delegate of the Congress . . . and no executive, judicial, military, 
or naval officer of the United States . . , shall directly or indirectly 
solicit or receive . . . any assessment, subscription, or contribu- 
tion for any political purpose whatever, from any officer, clerk, 
or employee of the United States. . . . 

Sec. 13. That no officer or employee of the United States 
mentioned in this act shall discharge, or promote, or degrade, 
or in any manner change the official rank or compensation of 
any other officer or employee . . . for giving or withholding or 
neglecting to make any contribution of money or other valuable 
thing on account of or to be applied to the promotion of any 
political object whatever. 

Sec. 15. That any person who shall be guilty of violating 
any provision of the four foregoing sections shall be deemed 
guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be 
punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by 
imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or by such 
fine and imprisonment both, in the discretion of the court. 

Approved^ January sixteenth 1883. 



Tzventy Years of Republican Siip7'emacy 505 

The Democratic convention which was to nominate 109. The 
Grover Cleveland on its second ballot met at Chicago, piatform^and 
July 8, 1884, On the next day it adopted as its platform candidate, 
the following scathing denunciation of the Republican 
party : 

The Democratic party of the Union, through its represen- 
tatives in national convention assembled, recognizes that, as the 
nation grows older, new issues are born of time and progress, 
and old issues perish ; but the fundamental principles of the 
Democracy, approved by the united voice of the people, remain, 
and ever will remain, as the best and only security for the 
continuance of free government. The preservation of personal 
rights ; the equality of all citizens before the law ; the reserved 
rights of the States ; and the supremacy of the federal govern- 
ment within the limits of the Constitution, will ever form the 
true basis of our liberties, and can never be surrendered without 
destroying that balance of rights and powers which enables a 
continent to be developed in peace, and social order to be main- 
tained by means of local self-government. But it is indispensable 
for the practical application and enforcement of these funda- 
mental principles that the government should not always be 
controlled by one political party. Frequent change of adminis- 
tration is as necessary as constant recurrence to the popular 
will. Otherwise, abuses grow, and the government, instead of 
being carried on for the general welfare, becomes an instrumen- 
tality for imposing heavy burdens on the many who are governed, 
for the benefit of the few who govern. Public servants thus 
become arbitrary rulers. This is now the condition of the country ; 
hence a change is demanded. 

The Republican party, so far as principle is concerned, is a 
reminiscence. In practice it is an organization for enriching those 
who control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have 
been brought to light in every department of the government 
are sufficient to have called for reform within the Republican 
party. Yet those in authority, made reckless by the long pos- 
session of power, have succumbed to its corrupting influence, 
and have placed in nomination a ticket [Blaine and Logan] 



5o6 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

against which the independent portion of the party are in open 
revolt. Therefore a change is demanded. Such a change was 
alike necessary in 1876, but the will of the people was then 
defeated by a fraud which can never be forgotten nor condoned. 
Again, in 1880, the change demanded by the people was de- 
feated by the lavish use of money contributed by unscrupulous 
contractors and shameless jobbers, who had bargained for un- 
lawful profits or high office. The Republican party, during its 
legal, its stolen, and its bought tenures of power, has steadily 
decayed in moral character and political capacity. Its platform 
promises are now a list of its past failures. It demands the 
restoration of our navy ; it has squandered hundreds of millions 
to create a navy that does not exist. It calls upon Congress to 
remove the burdens under which American shipping has been 
depressed ; it imposed and has continued those burdens. It pro- 
fesses the policy of reserving the public lands for small holdings 
by actual settlers; it has given away the people's heritage, till 
now a few railroads and non-resident aliens, individual and cor- 
porate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms between 
the two seas. It professes a preference for free institutions ; it 
organized and tried to legalize a control of state elections by 
federal troops. It professes a desire to elevate labor; it subjected 
American workingmen to the competition of convict and imported 
contract labor. It professes gratitude to all who were disabled 
or died in the war, leaving widows or orphans ; it left to a 
Democratic House of Representatives the first effort to equalize 
both bounties and pensions. It professes a pledge to correct the 
irregularities of our tariff; it created and has continued them. 
Its own tariff commission confessed the need of more than twenty 
per cent, reduction ; its Congress gave a reduction of less than 
four per cent. It professes the protection of American manu- 
factures ; it has subjected them to an increasing flood of manu- 
factured goods and a hopeless competition with manufacturing 
nations, not one of which taxes raw materials. It professes to 
protect all American industries ; it has impoverished many, to 
subsidize a few. It professes the protection of American labor ; 
it has depleted the returns of American agriculture, an industry 
followed by half our people. It professes the equality of all men 



Twenty Years of Republican Supremacy 507 

before the law, attempting to fix the status of colored citizens ; 
the acts of its Congress were overset by the decisions of its 
courts. It " accepts anew the duty of leading in the work of 
progress and reform " ; its caught criminals are permitted to 
escape through contrived delays or actual connivance in the 
prosecution. Honeycombed with corruption, outbreaking ex- 
posures no longer shock its moral sense. Its honest members, 
its independent journals, no longer maintain a successful con- 
test for authority in its canvasses or a veto upon bad nominations. 
That change is necessary is proved by an existing surplus of 
more than $100,000,000, which has yearly been collected from 
a suffering people. Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation. 
We denounce the Republican party for having failed to relieve 
the people from crushing war taxes, which have paralyzed busi- 
ness, crippled industry, and deprived labor of employment and 
of just reward. 

The Democracy pledges itself to purify the administration from 
corruption, to restore economy, to revive respect for the law, and 
to reduce taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard 
to the faith of the nation to its creditors and pensioners. . . . 

[Here follow the usual '' planks " in favor of economy, 
honest money, equality, a free ballot, civil-service reform, 
free labor, fair sales of public lands, internal improvements, 
and a merchant marine.] 

With this statement of the hopes, principles, and purposes 
of the Democratic party, the great issue of reform and change 
in the administration is submitted to the people in calm confi- 
dence that the popular voice will announce in favor of new 
men, and new and more favorable conditions for the growth 
of industry, the extension of trade, the employment and due 
reward of labor and capital, and the general welfare of the 
whole countr)'\ 

The week after Cleveland's nomination at Chicago The 
Nation published the following editorial appreciation of 
the candidate : 



5o8 History of the Repnblic since the Civil War 

The nomination of Grover Cleveland by the Democratic 
Convention makes the way perfectly plain and simple for all 
friends of good government who are for any reason dissatisfied 
with the Republican candidate. This time the Democrats have 
made no mistake. If Cleveland had no other claim to the confi- 
dence and support of those to whom parties are simply the 
means of promoting the national welfare, he would have a strong 
one in the character of the opposition he encountered in the 
Convention. As General Bragg finely and happily said in second- 
ing his nomination — '' We love him most of all for the enemies 
he has made." The hostility of Tammany and Butler, and in 
fact of whatever is basest and most demagogic in his own party, 
is of itself a tribute of which any public man might well be proud. 

But he is by no means dependent on this negative kind of 
testimony. The enmity of corrupt intriguers might mean after 
all simply that his intentions were good, and that they merely 
feared that he would, if put in power, fail to answer their pur- 
pose. Cleveland has happily something far stronger than the 
promise of a strong character to commend him to the suffrages 
of good men of all parties. He is a tried administrator. One of 
the Blaine organs in its great agony has tried to relieve itself by 
calling him '' a man destitute of experience." Of one kind of 
experience — experience in political trickery and manipulation, 
and in the art of making money for himself and his friends out 
of politics — he is indeed destitute. But the present extraordinaiy 
political crisis is due to the profound and growing popular belief 
that this kind of experience is too common among our statesmen, 
and that the Republican candidate in particular is too rich in it 
either for his own or his country's good. Of the kind of experi- 
ence which the present situation in national affairs most impera- 
tively calls for, experience in administration, Cleveland has more 
than anyone who has entered the White House since i860, more 
than any man whom either party has nominated within that pe- 
riod, except Seymour and Tilden — more than Lincoln, more than 
Grant, more than Hayes, more than Garfield, more than Arthur. 

He laid at the start the best of all foundations for American 
statesmanship by becoming a good lawyer. He began his execu- 
tive career by being a good county sheriff. He was next intrusted 



Twenty Years of Republican Stcpremacy 509 

with the administration of a great city [Buffalo] — as severe a 
test of a man's capacity in dealing with men and affairs as any 
American in our time can undergo. In both offices he gave 
boundless satisfaction to his fellow-citizens of both parties. His 
nomination for the Governorship of this State came in due course, 
and at a crisis in State affairs which very closely resembled that 
which we are now witnessing in national affairs. His election by 
an unprecedented majority is now an old story. It was the be- 
ginning of a revolution. It was the first thorough fright the tricky 
and jobbing element in politics ever received here. It for the 
first time in the experience of such politicians gave reform an 
air of reality. But it might, had Cleveland proved a weak or 
incompetent man, have turned out a very bad blow for pure 
politics. 

Luckily, he justified all the Expectations and even all the hopes 
of those who voted for him. No friend of good government who, 
in disregard of party ties, cast his vote for him, has had reason 
to regret it for one moment. We owe to his vigorous support a 
large number of reformatory measures which people in this State 
for forty years had sighed for with little more expectation of 
seeing them enacted than of seeing the Millennium. In other 
words, he has arrested the growth of political despair among 
large numbers both of young and old voters in this State. His 
Messages, too, have been models of sound common sense and 
penetrating sagacity clothed in the terse and vigorous English 
which shows that there is a man and not a windy phrasemonger 
behind the pen. Though last, not least, his best work has been 
done in utter disregard of the hostility of that element in his own 
party which for so many years has been an object of mingled 
hate and fear to the best part of the American people. He is 
in truth a Democrat of the better age of the Democratic party, 
when it was a party of simplicity and economy, and might almost 
have put its platform into the golden rule of giving every man 
his due, minding your own business, and asking nothing of 
government but light taxes and security in the field and by 
the fireside. No one who has entered the White House for 
half a century, except Lincoln in his second term, has offered 
reformers such solid guarantees that as President he will do 



5IO History of the Republic since the Civil War 

his own thinking, and be his own master in the things which 
pertain to the Presidency. . . . 

The true question for a voter to ask himself about a Presiden- 
tial candidate, especially in crises like the present, . . . are. In what 
way will he probably behave in the sphere of Presidential duties ? 
What kind of nominations to office will he send to the Senate ? 
What considerations are likely to prevail with him in making re- 
movals ? What sort of men are likely to surround him and be 
listened to by him at the White House ? What is likely to be his 
attitude toward the moral and intellectual currents of the day, 
and toward the upward movements in American politics and 
society ? How does he feel about money and rich men, and about 
the money-making enterprises which are the great snare and 
temptation of modern life ? Has he the sobriety of judgment, 
the steadiness of temper, the maturfty of character and the patient 
deliberativeness which high places and great cares imperatively 
call for ? Is he a sound and prudent man of business, and has 
he a keen eye for the remoter consequences of legislation ? Will 
he deal with foreign nations with the quiet and manly self-respect 
which becomes the representative of an industrious commercial 
people, among whom swashbucklers and military adventurers 
are despised or unknown ? 

These questions can, we believe, be answered as regards 
Mr. Cleveland in a way with which every friend of good govern- 
ment may be fully satisfied, and we commend him especially to 
the younger voters all over the country who long for a better 
era in politics, as a man to be trusted and worked for. Even 
those whose Republican traditions are most deeply rooted may 
rest assured that they can render no better service to the party 
they have long loved and supported than by securing his triumph. 
For this time a Democratic victory will arrest peremptorily, and, 
we believe, finally, the insolence and hopefulness of the corrupt 
and freebooting element among Republicans, which has found 
its final expression in the Blaine nomination, and has at last 
destroyed that dream of '' reform within the party " which has 
for so many years sustained the patience of tens of thousands 
of its best members. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE CLEVELAND DEMOCRACY 

A People's President 

There is no more conspicuous example of President no. The 
Cleveland's courageous fidelity to the avowed principles sagf oT^iSS? 
of the Democratic party or of his patriotic indifference to [5371 
his own political preferment than his third annual mes- 
sage, of December 6, 1887, devoted entirely to the dis- 
cussion of the reduction of the tariff. 

Washington, December 6, 1887 
To THE Congress of the United States : 

You are confronted at the threshold of your legislative duties 
with a condition of the national finances which imperatively 
demands immediate and careful consideration. 

The amount of money annually exacted, through the oper- 
ation of present laws, from the industries and necessities of the 
people largely exceeds the sum necessary to meet the expenses 
of the Government. 

When we consider that the theory of our institutions guaran- 
tees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his 
industry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his 
share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the 
Government which protects him, it is plain that the exaction of 
more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal 
of American fairness and justice. This wrong, inflicted upon 
those who bear the burden of national taxation, like other 
wrongs, multiplies a brood of evil consequences. The public 
Treasury, which should only exist as a conduit conveying the 
people's tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure, becomes 

5" 



512 History of tJie Republic since the Civil War 

a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and 
the people's use, thus crippling our national energies, suspending 
our country's development, preventing investment in productive 
enterprise, threatening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes 
of public plunder. . . . 

On the 30''' day of June, 1885, the excess of revenues 
over public expenditures, after complying with the annual 
requirements of the sinking-fund act, was $17,859,735.84; 
during the year ending June 30, 1886, such excess amounted 
to $49,405,545.20, and during the year ending June 30, 1887, 
it reached the sum of $55,567,849.54 . . . the excess for the 
present year amounting on the first day of December to 
$55,258,701.19, and estimated to reach the sum of $113,000,000 
on the 30*'' of June next, . . . will swell the surplus in the 
Treasury to $140,000,000. . . . 

I have deemed it my duty to thus bring to the knowledge of 
my countrymen, as well as to the attention of their represen- 
tatives charged with the responsibility of legislative relief, the 
gravity of our financial situation. ... If disaster results from 
the continued inaction of Congress, the responsibility must rest 
where it belongs. . . . 

Our scheme of taxation, by means of which this needless sur- 
plus is taken from the people and put into the public Treasury, 
consists of a tariff or duty levied upon importations from abroad 
and internal revenue taxes levied upon the consumption of to- 
bacco and spirituous and malt liquors. It must be conceded that 
none of the things subjected to internal revenue taxation are, 
strictly speaking, necessaries. There appears to be no just com- 
plaint of this taxation by the consumers of these articles, and 
there seems to be nothing so well able to bear the burden with- 
out hardship to any portion of the people. 

But our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable, and 
illogical source of unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once 
revised and amended. These laws, as their primary and plain 
effect, raise the price to consumers of all articles imported and 
subject to duty, by precisely the sum paid for such duties. Thus 
the amount of duty measures the tax paid by those who pur- 
chase for use those imported articles. Many of these things, 



The Cleveland Democracy 513 

however, are raised or manufactured in our own country, and 
the duties now levied upon foreign goods and products are 
called protection to these home manufacturers, because they 
render it possible for those of our people who are manufac- 
turers to make these taxed articles and sell them for a price 
equal to that demanded for the imported goods that have paid 
customs duty. So it happens that while comparatively a few 
use the imported articles, millions of our people . . . purchase 
and use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay 
therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty 
adds to the imported articles. . . . 

It is not proposed to entirely relieve the country of this tax- 
ation. It must be extensively continued as the source of the 
Government's income ; and in a readjustment of our tariff the 
interests of American labor engaged in manufacture should be 
carefully considered, as well as the preservation of our manu- 
factures. . . . But this existence should not mean a condition 
which, without regard to the public welfare, must always insure 
the realization of immense profits instead of moderately profit- 
able returns. As the volume and diversity of our national activ- 
ities increase, new recruits are added to those who desire a 
continuation of the advantages which they conceive the present 
system of tariff taxation directly affords them. So stubbornly 
have all efforts to reform the present condition been resisted by 
those of our fellow-citizens thus engaged that they can hardly 
complain of the suspicion, entertained to a certain extent, that 
there exists an organized combination all along the line to main- 
tain their advantage. . . . 

In speaking of the increased cost to the consumer of our 
home manufactures resulting from a duty laid upon imported 
articles of the same description, the fact is not overlooked that 
competition among our domestic producers sometimes has the 
effect of keeping the price of their products below the highest 
limit allowed by such duty. But it is notorious that this com- 
petition is too often strangled by combinations quite prevalent 
at this time, and frequently called trusts, which have for their 
object the regulation of the supply and price of commodities 
made and sold by members of the combination. The people 



5 1 4 History of the Republic siiice the Civil War 

can hardly hope for any consideration in the operation of these 
selfish schemes. 

If, however, in the absence of such combination, a healthy 
and free competition reduces the price of any particular dutiable 
article of home production below the limit which it might other- 
wise reach under our tariff laws, and if with such reduced price 
its manufacture continues to thrive, it is entirely evident that 
one thing has been discovered which should be carefully scruti- 
nized in an effort to reduce taxation. 

The necessity of combination to maintain the price of any 
commodity to the tariff point furnishes proof that some one is 
willing to accept lower prices for such commodity and that such 
prices are remunerative. The lower prices produced by compe- 
tition prove the same thing. Thus where either of these con- 
ditions exists a case would seem to be presented for an easy 
reduction of taxation. . . . 

The difficulty attending a wise and fair revision of our tariff 
laws is not underestimated. It will require on the part of the 
Congress great labor and care, and especially a broad and 
national contemplation of the subject and a patriotic disregard 
of such local and selfish claims as are unreasonable and reckless 
of the welfare of the entire country. . . . The taxation of luxu- 
ries presents no features of hardship ; but the necessaries of 
life used and consumed by all the people, the duty upon which 
adds to the cost of living in every home, should be greatly 
cheapened. . . . 

Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved 
by dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This 
savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a co?iditio7i which 
confronts us, not a theory. The question of free trade is 
absolutely irrelevant, and the persistent claim made in certain 
quarters that all the efforts to relieve the people from unjust 
and unnecessary taxation are schemes of so-called free traders, 
is mischievous and far removed from any consideration for the 
public good. 

The simple and plain duty which we owe the people is to 
reduce taxation to the necessary expenses of an economical 
operation of the Government and to restore to the business of 



The Cleveland Democracy 515 

the country the money which we hold in the Treasury through 
the possession of governmental powers. These things can and 
should be done with safety to all our industries, without danger 
to the opportunity for remunerative labor which our workingmen 
need, and with benefit to them and all our people by cheapen- 
ing their means of subsistence and increasing the measure of 
their comforts. . . . 

I am so much impressed with the paramount importance 
of the subject to which this communication has thus far been 
devoted that I shall forego the addition of any other topic, and 
only urge upon your immediate consideration the '' state of the 
Union " as shown in the present condition of our Treasury and 
our general fiscal situation, upon which every element of our 
safety and prosperity depends. . . . ^^^^^^ Cleveland 

Blaine vv^as in Paris when Cleveland's message appeared. 
He was immediately visited by the London correspondent 
of the Nezv York Trihuie and dictated the following in- 
terview, which was cabled to America and published in the 
Tribune of December 8, 1887. It is often called '' Blaine's 
Paris Message." 

" I have been reading an abstract of the President's mes- 
sage, and have been especially interested in the comments of the 
London papers. Those papers all assume to declare the mes- 
sage is a free trade manifesto and evidently are anticipating an 
enlarged market for English fabrics in the United States as a 
consequence of the President's recommendations. Perhaps that 
fact stamped the character of the message more clearly than 
any words of mine can." 

" You don't mean actual free trade without duty ? " queried 
the reporter. 

" No," replied Mr. Blaine, " nor do the London papers mean 
that. They simply mean that the President has recommended 
what in the United States is known as a revenue tariff, rejecting 
the protective features as an object, and not even permitting 
protection to result freely as an incident to revenue duties. . . . 



5 1 6 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

I mean that for the first time in the history of the United States 
the President recommends retaining the internal tax in order 
that the tariff may be forced down even below the fair revenue 
standard."' . . . 

" Do you think if the President's recommendations were 
adopted it would increase our export trade ? " 

" Possibly in some few articles of peculiar construction it might, 
but it would increase our import trade ten-fold as much in the 
great staple fabrics, in woolen and cotton goods, in iron, in 
steel, in all the thousand and one shapes in which they are 
wrought. How are we to export staple fabrics to the markets 
of Europe unless we make them cheaper than they do in Eu- 
rope, and how are we to manufacture them cheaper than they 
do in Europe unless we get cheaper labor than they have in 
Europe .? " 

" Then you think that the question of labor underlies the 
whole subject ? " 

" Of course it does. It is, in fact, the entire question. When- 
ever we can force carpenters, masons, ironworkers and mechanics 
in every department to work as cheaply and live as poorly in the 
United States as similar workmen in Europe, we can, of course, 
manufacture as cheaply as they do in England and France. 
But I am totally opposed to a policy that would entail such 
results. To attempt it is equivalent to a social and financial 
revolution, one that would bring untold distress." 

" Yes, but might not the great farming class be benefited by 
importing articles from Europe instead of buying them at higher 
prices at home .? " 

" The moment," answered Mr. Blaine, " you begin to import 
freely from Europe you drive our own workmen from mechan- 
ical and manufacturing pursuits. In the same proportion they 
become tillers of the soil, increasing steadily the agricultural 
product and decreasing steadily the large home demand which 
is constantly enlarging as home manufactures enlarge. That, of 
course, works great injury to the farmer, glutting the market 
with his products and tending constantly to lower prices." 

" Yes, but the foreign demand for farm products would be 
increased in like ratio, would it not ? " 



The Cleveland Democracy 517 

" Even suppose it were," said Mr. Blaine, " how do you know 
the source from which it will be supplied ? The tendency in 
Russia today and in the Asiatic possessions of England is toward 
a large increase of the grain supply, the grain being raised by the 
cheapest possible labor. Manufacturing countries will buy their 
breadstuffs where they can get them cheapest, and the enlarg- 
ing of the home market for the American farmer being checked, 
he would search in vain for one of the same value. His foreign 
sales are already checked by the great competition abroad. There 
never was a time when the increase of a large home market was 
so valuable to him. The best proof is that the farmers are pros- 
perous in proportion to the nearness of manufacturing centers, 
and a protective tariff tends to spread manufactures." . . . 

" But what about the existing surplus ? " 

" The abstract of the message I have seen," replied Mr. Blaine, 
'^ contains no reference to that point. I therefore make no com- 
ment further than to endorse Mr. Fred. Grant's remark that a 
surplus is always much easier to handle than a deficit. . . . 

" The President's recommendation enacted into a law would 
result as did an experiment in draining of a man who wished 
to turn a swamp into a productive field. He dug a drain to a 
neighboring river, but it happened, unfortunately, that the level 
of the river was higher than the level of the swamp. The con- 
sequence need not be told. A parallel would be found when 
the President's policy in attempting to open a channel for an 
increase of exports should simply succeed in making way for a 
deluging inflow of fabrics to the destruction of home industry. 
... It is not our foreign trade that has caused the wonderful 
growth and expansion of the Republic. It is the vast domestic 
trade between thirty-eight States and eight Territories, with 
their population of perhaps 62,000,000 today. The whole 
amount of our export and import trade together has never, 
I think, reached $1,900,000,000 in any one year. Our in- 
ternal home trade on 130,000 miles of railroad, along 15,000 
miles of ocean coast, over the five great lakes, and along 
20,000 miles of navigable rivers, reaches the enormous annual 
aggregate of more than $40,000,000,000, and perhaps this 
year $50,000,000,000. 



5 1 8 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

" It is into this illimitable trade, even now in its infancy, and 
destined to attain a magnitude not dreamed of twenty years ago, 
that the Europeans are struggling to enter. It is the heritage 
of the American people, of their children and of their children's 
children. It gives an absolutely free trade over a territory nearly 
as large as all Europe, and the profit is all our own. . . . Presi- 
dent Cleveland now plainly proposes a policy that will admit 
Europe to a share in this trade." 

"What must be the marked and general effect of the Presi- 
dent's message ? " 

" It will bring the country where it ought to be brought — to 
a full and fair contest on the question of protection. The Presi- 
dent himself makes it the one issue by presenting no other in 
his message. I think it well to have the question settled. The 
Democratic party in power is a standing menace to the indus- 
trial prosperity of the country. That menace should be removed 
or the policy it foreshadows should be made certain. Nothing is 
so mischievous to business as uncertainty, nothing so paralyzing 
as doubt." 

A Billion-Dollar Country 

111. The The most distinguished citizen of the South in the gen- 

eration following the Civil War was Henry W. Grady of 



[547] 



Atlanta, Georgia. Gifted with rare oratorical power, con- 
structive statesmanship, and generous sympathies, he 
devoted his great talents to the encouragement of the 
South in the development of its material resources and 
the cultivation of a broad national spirit. ''He was the 
leader of the New South, and died in the great work of 
impressing its marvellous growth and national aspirations 
upon the willing ear of the North." ^ He also impressed 

1 Remark of Chauncey M. Depew at a dinner of the New England 
Society of New York, December 23, 1889, on the reception of a tele- 
gram announcing the death of Grady. The reference in Depew's re- 
mark is to a visit made to Boston by Grady, only a few days before 
his death, to address the Merchants' Association — a visit in which he 



The Cleveland Democracy 5 1 9 

these ideas on the minds of the South, most eloquently, 
perhaps, in a speech at a state fair at Dallas, Texas, 
October 26, 1887, from which the following passages 
are taken : 

What of the South's industrial problem ? There is a figure 
with which history has dealt lightly, but that, standing pathetic 
and heroic in the genesis of our new growth, has interested me 
greatly — our soldier farmer of '65. What chance had he for 
the future as he wandered amid his empty barns, his stock, 
labor, and implements gone — gathered up the fragments of his 
wreck — urging kindly his borrowed mule — paying sixty per 
cent, for all that he bought, and buying all on credit — his crop 
mortgaged before it was planted — his children in want, his 
neighborhood in chaos — working under new conditions and 
retrieving every error by a costly year — plodding all day down 
the furrow, hopeless and adrift, save when at night he went 
back to his broken home, where his wife, cheerful even then, 
renewed his courage, while she ministered to him in loving ten- 
derness. Who would have thought . . . that he would in twenty 
years, having carried these burdens uncomplainingly, make a 
crop of $800,000,000 ? Yet this he has done, and from his 
bounty the South has rebuilded her cities, and recouped her 
losses. While we exult in his splendid achievement, let us take 
account of his standing. . . . 

With amazing rapidity [the South] has moved away from the 
one crop idea that was once her curse. In 1880 she was 
esteemed prosperous. Since that time she has added 393,000,- 
000 bushels to her grain crops, and 182,000,000 head to her 
live stock. This has not lost one bale of her cotton crop, which, 
on the contrary, has increased nearly 200,000 bales. With 
equal swiftness she has moved away from the folly of shipping 
out her ore at $2 a ton and buying it back in implements from 
$20 to $100 per ton; her cotton at 10 cents a pound, and 

contracted a fatal case of pneumonia. " New York mingles her tears with 
those of his kindred," continued Depew, " and offers to his memory a 
tribute of her profoundest admiration." — J. C. Harris, The Life of 
Henry W. Grady, p. 624. 



5 20 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

buying it back in cloth at 20 to 80 cents per pound ; her timber 
at $8 per thousand [feet] and buying it back in furniture at ten 
to twenty times as much. In the past eight years $250,000,000 
have been invested in new shops and factories in her States ; 
225,000 are now working who eight years ago were idle or 
worked elsewhere, and these added $227,000,000 to the value 
of her raw material — more than half the value of her cotton. 
Add to this the value of her increased grain crops and stock, 
and in the past eight years she has grown in her fields or created 
in her shops manufactures more than the value of her cotton 
crop. The incoming tide has begun to rise. Every train brings 
manufacturers from the East and West seeking to establish 
themselves or their sons near the raw material and in this 
growing market. Let the fullness of the tide roll in. 

It will not exhaust our materials, nor shall we glut our 
markets. When the growing demand of our Southern market, 
feeding on its own growth, is met, we shall find new markets 
for the South. We buy from Brazil $50,000,000 worth of 
goods, and sell her $8,500,000. England buys on $29,000,000, 
and sells her $35,000,000. Of $65,000,000 in cotton goods 
bought by Central and South America, over $50,000,000 went 
to England. Of $331,000,000 sent abroad by the southern half 
of our hemisphere, England secures over half, although we buy 
from that section nearly twice as much as England. Our neigh- 
bors to the south need every article we make ; we need nearly 
everything they produce. Less than 2,500 miles of road must 
be built to bind by rail the two American continents. When this 
is done, and even before, we shall find exhaustless markets to 
the South. . . . 

The South, under the rapid diversification of crops and diver- 
sification of industries, is thrilling with new life. As this new 
prosperity comes to us, it will bring no sweeter thought to me, 
and to you, my countrymen, I am sure, than that it adds not 
only to the comfort and happiness of our neighbors, but that it 
makes broader the glory and deeper the majesty, and more 
enduring the strength, of the Union which reigns supreme in 
our hearts. In this republic of ours is lodged the hope of free 
government on earth. . . . Let us — once estranged and thereby 



The Cleveland Democracy 5 2 1 

closer bound — let us soar above all provincial pride and find 
our deeper inspirations in gathering the fullest sheaves into the 
harvest and standing the staunchest and most devoted' of its 
sons as it lights the path and makes clear the way through 
which all the people of this earth shall come in God's appointed 
time. . . . 

The South needs her sons today more than when she sum- 
moned them to the forum to maintain her political supremacy, 
more than when the bugle called them to the field to defend 
issues put to the arbitrament of the sword. Her old body is 
instinct with appeal calling on us to come and give her fuller inde- 
pendence than she has ever sought in field or forum. It is ours 
to show that as she prospered with slaves, she shall prosper still 
more with freemen ; ours to see that from the lists she entered 
in poverty she shall emerge in prosperity ; ours to carry the 
transcending traditions of the old South from which none of us 
can in honor or in reverence depart, unstained and unbroken 
into the new. Shall we fail ? Shall the blood of the old South 
— the best strain that ever uplifted human endeavor — that ran 
like water at duty's call and never stained where it touched — 
shall this blood that pours into our veins through a century 
luminous with achievement, for the first time falter and be 
driven back from irresolute heat, when the old South, that left 
us a better heritage in manliness and courage than in broad 
and rich acres, calls us to settle problems .? . . . 

I see a South, the home of fifty millions of people, who rise 
up every day to call from blessed cities, vast hives of industry 
and of thrift ; her countrysides the treasures from which their 
resources are drawn ; her streams vocal with whirring spindles ; 
her valleys tranquil in the white and gold of the harvest ; her 
mountains showering down the music of bells, as her slow- 
moving flocks and herds go forth from their folds ; her rulers 
honest and her people loving, and her homes happy and their 
hearthstones bright, and their waters still, and their pastures 
green, and her conscience clear ; her wealth diffused and poor 
houses empty. . . . Peace and sobriety walking hand in hand 
through her borders ; honor in her homes ; uprightness in her 
midst ; plenty in her fields ; straight and simple faith in the 



522 History of the Republic since the Civil War 



112. The 
hurricane 
at Samoa, 
March 15- 
1889 



[553] 



hearts of her sons and daughters ; her two races walking to- 
gether in peace and contentment ; sunshine everywhere and all 
the time, and night falling on her generally as from the wings 
of the unseen dove. 

The New York Times of Sunday, March 31, 1889, 
published the following dispatch from Rear Admiral Kim- 
^<5, berley in Samoa, sent via Aukland and London : 

Hurricane at Apia, March 15. Every vessel in harbor on 
shore except English man-of-war Calliope which got to sea. 
Trenton and Vandalia total losses. Nipsic beached ; rudder 
gone ; may be saved ; chances against it. . . . Va7idalia lost 
four officers and thirty-nine men ; Nipsic lost seven men ; all 
saved from Trenton. . . . German losses ninety-six. Important 
to send three hundred men home at once. Shall I charter 
steamer? Can charter in Aukland. . . . Fuller accounts by 



mail. 



Kimberly 



Three years later this terrible calamity was described by 
the greatest living writer of narrative prose, Robert Louis 
Stevenson, in his 



Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa.' 



By the second week in March, three American ships were in 
Apia bay — the Nipsic, the Vandalia, and the Tre?iton, carrying 
the flag of Rear-Admiral Kimberley ; three German — the Adler, 
the Eber, and the Olga\ and one British, — the Calliope, Captain 
Kane. Six merchantmen, ranging from twenty-five up to five 
hundred tons, and a number of small craft, further encumbered 
the anchorage. ... In this overcrowding of ships in an open 
entry of the reef, even the eye of a landsman could spy danger; 
and Captain-Lieutenant Wallis of the Eber openly blamed and 
lamented, not many hours before the catastrophe, their helpless 
posture. Temper once more triumphed. The army of Mataafa 
still hung immanent behind the town ; the German quarter was 
still daily garrisoned with fifty sailors from the squadron ; what 
was yet more influential, Germany and the [United] States, at 
least in Apia bay, were on the brink of war, viewed each other 



The Cleveland Democracy 523 

with looks of hatred, and scarce observed the letter of civility. 
On the day of the admiral's arrival, Knapp [the German consul 
in Samoa] failed to call on him, and on the morrow called on 
him while he was on shore. The slight was remarked and 
resented, and the two squadrons clung the more obstinately to 
their dangerous station. 

On the is"" the barometer fell to 29°.! i by 2 p.m. This 
was a moment when every sail in port should have escaped. 
Kimberley, who flew the only broad pennant, should certainly 
have led the way ; he clung, instead, to his moorings, and the 
Germans doggecily followed his example : semibelligerents, daring 
each other and the violence of heaven. . . . The night closed 
black, with sheets of rain. By midnight it blew a gale ; and by 
the morning watch, a tempest. . . . 

Day came about six, and presented to those on shore a seiz- 
ing and terrific spectacle. In the pressure of the squalls, the 
bay was obscured as if by midnight, but between them a great 
part of it was clearly if darkly visible amid driving mist and 
rain. The wind blew into the harbor mouth. . . . Seas that 
might have awakened surprise and terror in the midst of the 
Atlantic, ranged bodily and' (it seemed to observers) almost 
without diminution into the belly of that flask-shaped harbor ; 
and the war ships were alternately buried from view in the 
trough, or seen standing on end against the breast of billows. 

The Trenton at daylight still maintained her position in the 
neck of the botde. But five of the remaining ships tossed, 
already close to the bottom, in a perilous and helpless crowd ; 
threating to ruin each other as they tossed ; threatened with a 
common and imminent destruction on the reefs. Three had 
been already in collision ; the Olga was injured in the quarter ; 
the Adler had lost her bowsprit ; the Nipsic had lost her smoke- 
stack, and was making steam with difficulty, maintaining her 
fire with barrels of pork, and the smoke and sparks pouring 
along the level of the deck. . . . The Eber had dragged anchors 
with the rest; her injured screw disabled her from steaming 
vigorously up ; and a little before day, she had struck the front 
of the coral, come off, struck again, and gone down stem fore- 
most, oversetting as she went, into the gaping hollow of the 



524 Hist07y of the Republic since the Civil War 

reef. Of her whole complement of nearly eighty, four souls 
were cast alive on the beach ; and the bodies of the remainder 
were, by the voluminous outpouring of the flooded streams, 
scoured at last from the harbor, and strewed naked on the 
seaboard of the island. . . . 

Three ships still hung on the next margin of destruction, 
steaming desperately to their moorings, dashed helplessly to- 
gether. The Calliope was the nearest in ; she had the Vandalia 
close on her port side and a little ahead, the Olga close a-star- 
board, the reef under her keel ; and steaming and veering on 
her cables, the unhappy ship fenced with her three dargers. . . . 
The one possibility of escape was to go out. If the engines 
should stand, if they should have power to drive the ship against 
wind and sea, if she should answer the helm, if the wheel, 
rudder, and gear should hold out, and if they were favored with 
a clear blink of weather in which to see and avoid the outer 
reef — there, and there only, were safety. Upon this catalogue 
of " ifs " Kane staked his all. He signalled to the engineer for 
every pound of steam — and at that moment (I am told) much 
of the machinery was already red hot. . . . For a time the Cal- 
liope lay stationary ; then gradually drew ahead. The highest 
speed claimed for her that day is of one sea-mile an hour. . . . 
As she thus crept seaward, she buried bow and stern alternately 
under the billows. 

In the fairway of the entrance, the flagship T7'enfon still held 
on. Her rudder was broken, her wheel carried away ; within 
she was flooded. . . . She had just made the signal " fires ex- 
tinguished," and lay helpless, awaiting the inevitable end. Be- 
tween this melancholy hulk and the external reef, Kane must 
find a path. Steering within fifty yards of the reef . . . and her 
foreyard passing on the other hand over the Trento7i's quarter as 
she rolled, the Calliope sheered between the rival dangers, came 
to the wind triumphantly, and was once more pointed for the 
sea and safety. Not often in naval history was there a moment 
of more sickening peril, and it was dignified by one of those in- 
cidents that reconcile the chronicler with his otherwise abhorrent 
task. From the doomed flagship, the Americans hailed the suc- 
cess of the English with a cheer. It was led by the old Admiral 



TJie Cleveland Democracy 525 

in person, rang out over the storm with a holiday vigor, and v^as 
answered by the Calliopes with an emotion easily conceived. 
The ship of their kinsfolk was almost the last external object 
seen from the Calliope for hours ; immediately after, the mists 
closed about her till the morrow. She was safe at sea again — 
una de vitiltis. . . . 

The morning of the 17*^ displayed a scene of devastation 
rarely equalled ; the Adler high and dry, the Olga and Nipsic 
beached, the Trenton partly piled on the Vandalia and herself 
sunk to the gun-deck ; no sail afloat ; and the beach heaped 
high with the debris of ships and the wreck of mountain forests. 
. . . Thus, in what seemed the very article of war, and within 
the duration of a single day, the sword arm of each of the two 
angry powers was broken ; their formidable ships reduced to 
junk ; their disciplined hundreds to a horde of castaways, fed 
with difficulty, and the fear of whose misconduct marred the 
sleep of their commanders. Both paused aghast ; both had time 
to recognize that not the whole Samoan Archipelago was worth 
the loss in men and costly ships already suffered. The so-called 
hurricane of March 16 made thus a marking epoch in world- 
history ; directly, and at once, it brought about the congress and 
treaty of Berlin ; ^ indirectly, and by a process still continuing, it 
founded the modem navy of the [United] States. Coming years 
and other historians will declare the influence of that. 

Although the ''formidable" and "costly" ships wrecked 
at Apia were only unarmored cruisers of from 1375 to 
3900 tons, their loss was sufficient to cripple our navy. 
Under the title '' The Naval Catastrophe " an editorial in 
the New York Times of March 31, 1889, said : 

Another lesson which the Americans may well take to heart 
is the duty of increasing their navy with all possible dispatch. 

1 For the congress see Muzzey, An American History, p. 554. The 
tripartite government lasted through ten stormy years, until, in Decem- 
ber, 1899, the British withdrew entirely from Samoa and left Germany 
and the United States to divide the islands. We took the island of Tu- 
tuila, which contained Pango-Pango, the best harbor in the archipelago. 



526 History of tJic Republic since the Civil War 

The Germans can replace their shattered ships without great 
exertion and with comparatively little delay. . . . The United 
States will have great difficulty in recruiting its naval forces 
in Apia and taking off the shipwrecked crews. At Panama a 
vessel cannot be spared : at San Francisco there is not a ship 
available for the service. There are three antiquated vessels in 
the Asiatic squadron, one new dispatch boat, the Dolphin^ and the 
Pales, which is hardly better than a tow-boat. In this emergency 
the only resource is to send some of these venerable relics from 
China to Hawaii, and leave those important stations bare. Such a 
situation is humiliating to American pride. The movement for 
providing the country with a well-equipped modern navy ought 
to receive a powerful impulse from the Samoan catastrophe. 



Problems of Cleveland's Second Term 

113. The The most serious industrial struggle in the history of 

stdk^e^of <^^^ country, and the only one in which the troops of the 
1894 United States have been called upon to fire on United 

t^^^l States citizens, was the great railroad strike in Chicago in 

1894, arising out of the conflict over wages in the Pull- 
man Palace Car Company. On the day set by the Amer- 
ican Railway Union for refusing to handle trains to which 
Pullman cars were attached, unless the Pullman Company 
agreed to arbitration with its employees ^ (June 26, 1894), 
the following statement of its position was published by 
the company in the Chicago Herald: 

1 On July 26, 1894, President Cleveland appointed a commission of 
three men to investigate the causes of the strike. In his testimony be- 
fore the commission George M. Pullman, president of the company, 
said: "Of course there are matters which are proper subjects of arbitra- 
tion . . . but as to whether a fact which I know to be true, is true or not, 
I could not agree to submit to arbitration. The question as to whether 
the shops at Pullman should be continuously operated at a loss or not, 
is one which it was impossible for the company, as a matter of princi- 
ple, to submit to the opinion of any third party." — W. J. Ashley, The 
Railroad Strike of 1894, p. 3. Cambridge, 1895. 



The Cleveland Democracy 527 

In view of the proposed attempt of the American Raihvay 
Union to interfere with public travel on railway lines using 
Pullman cars, in consequence of a controversy as to the wages 
of employes of the manufacturing department of the company, 
the Pullman company requests the publication of the following 
statement of the facts, in the face of which the attempt is to 
be made. 

In the first week of May last, there were employed in the 
car manufacturing department at Pullman, III, about 3100 
persons. On May 7"" a committee of the workmen had an 
interview by arrangement with Mr. Wickes, vice-president, at 
which the principal subject of discussion related to wages. . . . 
The absolute necessity of the last reduction in wages, under 
the existing condition of the business of car manufacturing, 
had been explained to the committee, and they were insisting 
upon a restoration of the wage scale of the first half of 1893, 
when Mr. Pullman entered the room and addressed the com- 
mittee, speaking in substance as follows : 

At the commencement of the very serious depression last year 
we were employing at Pullman 5816 men, and paying out in wages 
there $305,000 a month. Negotiations with intending purchasers of 
railway equipment that were then pending for new work were stopped 
by them, orders already given by others were canceled, and we were 
obliged to lay off, as you are aware, a large number of men in every 
department, so that by November i, 1893, there were only about 
2000 men in all departments. ... I realized the necessity for the 
most strenuous exertions to procure work immediately . . . and, with 
lower prices upon all materials, I personally undertook the work of 
the lettings of cars, and by making lower bids than other manufac- 
turers, I secured work enough to gradually increase our force from 
2000 up to about 4200, the number employed, according to the April 
pay-rolls, in all capacities at Pullman. 

This result has not been accomplished merely by reduction in 
wages, but the company has borne its full share by eliminating from 
its estimates the use of capital and machinery, and in many cases 
going even below that and taking work at considerable loss, notably 
the fifty-five Long Island cars, which was the first large order of 
passenger cars let since the great depression, and which was sought 
for by practically all the leading car-builders in the country. My 



528 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

anxiety to secure that order, so as to put as many men at work as 
possible, was such that I put in a bid at more than $300 per car less 
than the actual cost to the company. The three hundred stock cars 
built for the Northwestern Road and the two hundred and fifty 
refrigerator cars now under construction for the same company, will 
result in a loss of at least $12 per car, and the twenty-five cars just 
built for the Lake Street Elevated Road show a loss of $79 per car. 
I mention these particulars so that you may understand what the 
company has done for the mutual interest and to secure for the people 
at Pullman and vicinity the benefit of the disbursement of the large 
sums of money involved in these and similar contracts. ... I can 
only assure you that if this company now restores the wages of the 
first half of 1893, as you have asked, it would be a most unfortunate 
thing for the men, because there is less than sixty days of contract 
work in sight in the shops under all orders, and there is absolutely 
no possibility, in the present condition of affairs throughout the coun- 
try, of getting any more orders for work at prices measured by the 
wages of May, 1893. Under such a scale the works would necessa- 
rily close down and the great majority of the employes be put in 
idleness, a contingency I am using my best efforts to avoid. 

To further benefit the people of Pullman and vicinity, we con- 
centrated all the work that we command at that point, by closing our 
Detroit shops entirely, and laying off a large number of men at our 
other repair shops, and gave to Pullman the repair of all cars that 
could be taken care of there. 

Also for the further benefit of our people at Pullman, we have 
carried on a large system of internal improvements, having expended 
nearly $160,000 since August last in work, which, under normal con- 
ditions, would have been spread over one or two years. The policy 
would be to continue this class of work to as great an extent as pos- 
sible, provided, of course, the Pullman men show a proper apprecia- 
tion of the situation by doing whatever they can to help themselves 
to tide over the hard times which are so seriously felt in every part 
of the country. . . . 

At a meeting of the local committee held during the night of 
May 10 a strike was decided upon, and accordingly the next 
day about 2500 of the employes quit their work, leaving about 
600 at work, of whom very few were skilled workmen. As it 
was found impracticable to keep the shops in operation with 
a force thus diminished and disorganized, the next day those 



The Cleveland Democracy 5 29 

remaining were necessarily laid off, and no work has since been 
done in the shops. 

The pay-rolls at the time amounted to about $7,000 a day, 
and were reduced $5,500 by the strike, so that during the period 
of a little more than six weeks which has elapsed the employes 
who quit their work have deprived themselves and their com- 
rades of earnings of more than $200,000. . . . 

While deploring the possibility of annoyance to the public by 
the threats of irresponsible organizations to interrupt the orderly 
ministration to the comfort of travelers on railway lines aggre- 
gating 125,000 miles in length, the Pullman company can do 
no more than explain its situation to the public. It has two 
separate branches of business, essentially distinct from each 
other. One is to provide sleeping cars, which are delivered by 
it under contract to the various railway companies, to be run by 
them on their lines as a part of their trains for the carriage of 
passengers, over the movements of which this company has no 
control. . . . The other, and a distinct branch of the business 
of the Pullman company, is the manufacture of sleeping cars 
for the above-mentioned use of railway companies, and the 
manufacture for sale to railway companies of freight cars and 
ordinary passenger cars, and of street cars, and this business is 
almost at a standstill throughout the United States. 

The business of manufacturing cars for sale gives employment 
to about 70*^ of the shop employes. The manufacture of sleep- 
ing cars for use by the railway companies under contract gives 
employment to about is'y^ of the shop employes. . . . 

It is now threatened by the American Railway Union officials 
that railway companies using Pullman sleeping cars shall be 
compelled to deprive their passengers of sleeping-car accommo- 
dations, unless the Pullman company will agree to submit to 
arbitration the question as to whether or not it shall open its 
manufacturing shops at Pullman and operate them under a 
scale of wages which would cause a daily loss to it of one-fourth 
the wages paid. 

The economic aspect of the strike, however, was not 
the only one, nor perhaps even the chief one. Early in 



5 30 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

July, after the mob in Chicago had begun the destruction 
of railroad property, President Cleveland, in accordance 
with the authority given him by the laws of the United 
States, 1 ordered federal troops to the scene of action to 
preserve order. The controversy which arose between 
President Cleveland and Governor Altgeld of Illinois over 
this procedure is described by the former in his article, 
''The Government in the Chicago Strike of 1894": 

I must not fail to mention here as part of the history of this 
perplexing affair, a contribution made by the governor of Illinois 
to its annoyances. This official not only refused to regard the 
riotous disturbances within the borders of his State as a suffi- 
cient cause for an application to the Federal Government for its 
protection '' against domesdc violence " under the mandate of 
the Constitution,^ but he actually protested against the presence 
of Federal troops sent into the State upon the General Gov- 
ernment's own initiative and for the purpose of defending itself 
in the exercise of its well-defined legitimate functions. 

On the 5^^ day of July, twenty-four hours after our soldiers 
had been brought into the city of Chicago, pursuant to the 
order of July 3^, I received a long despatch from Governor 
Altgeld, beginning as follows : 

I am advised that you have ordered Federal troops to go into serv- 
ice in the State of Illinois. Surely the facts have not been correctly 

1 Section 5298 of the Revised Statutes of the United States reads : 
" Whenever, by reason of unlawful obstructions, combinations or as- 
semblages of persons, or rebellion against the authority of the United 
States, it shall become impracticable in the judgment of the President 
to enforce, by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the laws of 
the United States within any State or Territory, it shall be lawful for 
the President to call forth the militia of any or all of the States, and to 
employ such parts of the land or naval forces of the United States as 
he may deem necessary to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of 
the United States, or to suppress such rebellion, in whatever State or 
Territory thereof the laws of the United States may be forcibly oppressed 
or the execution thereof be forcibly obstructed." 

2 Constitution, Article IV, sect. IV. 



The Cleveland Democracy 531 

presented to you in this case or you would not have taken the step ; 
for it is entirely unnecessary, and, as it seems to me, unjustifiable. 
Waiving all question of courtesy, I will say that the State of Illinois 
is not only able to take care of itself, but it stands ready today to fur- 
nish the Federal Government any assistance it may need elsewhere. 

This opening sentence was followed by a lengthy statement 
which so far missed actual conditions as to appear irrelevant 
and, in some parts, absolutely frivolous. This remarkable des- 
patch closed with the following words : 

As Governor of the State of Illinois, I protest against this and 
ask the immediate withdrawal of Federal troops from active duty in 
this State. Should the situation at any time get so serious that we 
cannot control it with State forces, we will promptly and freely ask 
for Federal assistance ; but until such time I protest with all due 
deference against this uncalled-for reflecdon upon our people, and 
again ask for the immediate withdrawal of these troops. 

Immediately upon receipt of this communication, I sent to 
Governor Altgeld the following reply : 

Federal troops were sent to Chicago in strict accordance with the 
Constitution and the laws of the United States, upon the demand of 
the Post-Office Department that obstructions of the mails should be 
removed, and upon the representation of the judicial officers of the 
United States that process of the Federal courts could not be executed 
through ordinary means, and upon abundant proof that conspiracies 
existed against commerce between the States. To meet these condi- 
tions, which are clearly within the province of Federal authority, the 
presence of Federal troops in the city of Chicago was deemed not 
only proper but necessary ; and there has been no intention of thereby 
interfering with the plain duty of the local authorities to preserve the 
peace of the city. 

In response to this the governor, evidently unwilling to allow 
the matter at issue between us to rest without a renewal of argu- 
ment and protest, at once addressed to me another long tel- 
egraphic communication, evidently intended to be more severely 
accusatory and insistent than its predecessor. Its general tenor 
may be inferred from the opening words : 



532 History of tJie Republic since tJie Civil War 

Your answer to my protest involves some startling conclusions, 
and ignores and evades the question at issue — that is, that the prin- 
ciple of local fundamental self-government is just as fundamental in 
our institutions as is that of Federal supremacy. You calmly assume 
that the Executive has the legal right to order Federal troops into 
any community of the United States in the first instance, wherever 
there is the slightest disturbance, and that he can do this without 
any regard to the question as to whether the community is able to 
and ready to enforce the law itself. 

After a rather dreary discussion of the importance of preserv- 
ing the rights of the States, and a presentation of the dangers 
to constitutional government that lurked in the course that had 
been pursued by the general Government, this communication 
closed as follows : 

Inasmuch as the Federal troops can do nothing but what the State 
troops can do there, and believing that the State is amply able to 
take care of the situation and to enforce the law, and believing that 
the ordering out of the Federal troops was unwarranted, I again ask 
their withdrawal. 

I confess that my patience w^as somewhat strained when I 
quickly sent the following despatch in reply to this communication : 

Executive Mansion 

Washington D.C., July 6, 1894 

While I am still persuaded that I have neither transcended my 

authority nor duty in the emergency that confronts us, it seems to 

me that in this hour of danger and public distress, discussion may 

well give way to active efforts on the part of all in authority to restore 

obedience to law and to protect life and property. 

Grover Cleveland 
Hon. John P. Altgeld 

Governor of Illinois 

This closed a discussion which in its net results demonstrated 
how far one's disposition and inclination will lead him astray in 
the field of argument. 

Early in June, 1895, Richard Olney of Massachusetts 
succeeded W. O. Gresham as Secretary of State in Cleve- 
land's cabinet, and, at the President's suggestion, prepared 



The Cleveland Democracy 533 

an energetic statement of our claim to compel Great Britain, 114. Twist- 
in the name of the Monroe Doctrine, to arbitrate its long- |^f non'f ^^*' 
standing dispute with Venezuela over the boundary of ^^^^ '- the 
British Guiana. Olney's message, dated at Washington, affair, 1895 
July 20, 1895, was delivered by Ambassador Bayard to [566] 
Lord Salisbury, the British prime minister, on August 7. 
After outlining the history of the boundary dispute since 
1840, Secretary Olney continues: 

The important features of the existing situation, as shown 
by the foregoing recital, may be briefly stated : — 

1. The title to territory of indefinite but confessedly very 
large extent is in dispute between Great Britain on the one hand 
and the South American Republic of Venezuela on the other. 

2. The disparity in strength of the claimants is such that 
Venezuela can hope to establish her claim only through peace- 
ful methods — through an agreement with her adversary either 
upon the subject itself or upon an arbitration. 

3. The controversy with varying claims on the part of Great 
Britain has existed for more than a half-a-century, during which 
period many earnest and persistent efforts of Venezuela to 
establish a boundary by agreement have proved unsuccessful. 

4. The futility of the endeavor to obtain a conventional line 
being recognized, Venezuela, for a quarter of a century, has 
asked and striven for arbitration. 

5. Great Britain however has always and continuously re- 
fused, and still refuses, to arbitrate except upon the condition 
of a renunciation of a large part of the Venezuelan claim, and 
of a concession to herself of a large share of the territory in 
controversy. 

6. By the frequent interposition of its good offices at the in- 
stance of Venezuela, by constantly urging and promoting the 
restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, by 
pressing for arbitration of the disputed boundary, by offering 
to act as arbitrator, by expressing its grave concern whenever 
new alleged instances of British aggression of Venezuelan terri- 
tory have been brought to its notice, the Government of the 



534 History of the RepiLblic since the Civil War 

United States has made it clear to Great Britain and to the 
world that the controversy is one in which both its honor and 
its interests are involved, and the continuance of which it 
cannot regard with indifference. . . . 

Those charged with the interests of the United States are 
now forced to determine exactly what those interests are and 
what course of action they require ... to decide to what extent, 
if any, the United States may and should intervene in a con- 
troversy between and primarily concerning only Great Britain 
and Venezuela, and to decide how far it is bound to see that 
the integrity of Venezuelan territory is not impaired by the 
pretensions of its powerful antagonist. . . . 

The Monroe doctrine . . . does not establish any general 
Protectorate by the United States over other American States. 
It does not relieve any American State from its obligations as 
fixed by international law nor prevent any European power 
directly interested from enforcing such obligations or from in- 
flicting merited punishment for the breach of them. . . . The 
rule in question has but a single purpose and object. It is that 
no European power or combination of European powers shall 
forcibly deprive an American State of the right and power of 
self-government and of shaping for itself its own political for- 
tunes and destinies. . . . 

It is manifest that if a rule has been openly and uniformly 
declared and acted upon by the Executive Branch of the Gov- 
ernment for more than seventy years without express repudia- 
tion by Congress, it must be conclusively presumed to have its 
sanction. ... It rests upon facts and principles that are both 
intelligible and incontrovertible. . . . Europe, as Washington 
observed, has a set of primary interests which are peculiar to 
herself. America is not interested in them, and ought not to be 
vexed or complicated with them. Each great European power, 
for instance, today maintains enormous armies and fleets in 
self-defence, and for protection against any other European 
Power or Powers. What have the United States of America 
to do with that condition of things, or why should they be im- 
poverished by wars or preparations for wars with whose causes 
or results they can have no direct concern ? . . . 



The Cleveland Democracy 535 

The people of the United States have learned in the school of 
experience to what extent the relations of States to each other de- 
pend not upon sentiment nor principle, but upon selfish interest. 
They will not soon forget that in their hour of distress all their 
anxieties and burdens were aggravated by the possibility of dem- 
onstrations against their national life on the part of Powers with 
whom they had long maintained the most harmonious relations 

Today the United States is practically sovereign on this con- 
tinent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines 
its interposition. Why ? . . . It is because, in addition to all 
other grounds, its infinite resources combined with its isolated 
position render it master of the situation and practically invul- 
nerable as against any or all other powers. . . . The advantages 
of this superiority are at once imperilled if the principle be 
admitted that European powers may convert American States 
into colonies or provinces of their own. . . . 

The territory which Great Britain insists shall be ceded to 
her as a condition of arbitrating her claim to other territory has 
never been admitted to belong to her. It has always and con- 
sistently been claimed by Venezuela. Upon what principle — 
except her feebleness as a nation — is she to be denied the right 
of having the claim heard and passed upon by an impartial Tri- 
bunal ? No reason or shadow of reason appears in all the volu- 
minous literature of the subject. " It is to be so because I will it 
to be so" seems to be the only justification Great Britain offers 

In these circumstances, the duty of the President appears to 
him unmistakable and imperative. Great Britain's assertion of 
a title to the disputed territory, combined with her refusal to 
have that title investigated, being a substantial appropriation 
of that territory to her own use, not to protest . . . would be to 
ignore an established policy [the Monroe Doctrine] with which 
the honor and welfare of this country are closely identified. 
While the measures necessary or proper for the vindication of 
that policy are to be determined by another branch of the Gov- 
ernment,^ it is clearly for the Executive to leave nothing undone 
which may tend to render such determination unnecessary. 

1 A veiled threat of war, in reference to the powers of Congress, 
enumerated in Article I, Sect. VIII, par. 10-13, of the Constitution. 



536 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

You are instructed, therefore, to present the foregoing views 
to Lord Salisbury. . . . They call for a definite decision upon the 
point whether Great Britain will consent or will decline to sub- 
mit the Venezuelan boundary question in its entirety to impar- 
tial arbitration. It is the earnest hope of the President that the 
conclusion will be on the side of arbitration. ... If he is to be 
disappointed in that hope, however — a result not to be antici- 
pated, and in his judgment calculated to greatly embarrass the 
future relations between this country and Great Britain — it is 
his wish to be made acquainted with the fact at such early date 
as will enable him to lay the whole subject before Congress in 

his next Annual Message, 

I am etc. 

Richard Olney 

The reply to Olney 's message was sent by Lord Salis- 
bury to Sir Julian Pauncefote, British ambassador at 
Washington, on November 26, 1895, too late to furnish 
President Cleveland with material for his annual message 
to Congress the first week in December. The British 
premier's note was a polite but firm rejection of Olney's 
claims. In the course of the dispatch Lord Salisbury 
said: 

The contentions set forth by Mr. Olney . . . are represented 
by him as being an application of the political maxims which 
are well known in American discussion under the name of the 
Monroe doctrine. As far as I am aware, this doctrine has never 
been before advanced on behalf of the United States in any 
written communication addressed to the Government of another 
nation ; but it has been generally adopted and assumed as true 
by many eminent writers and politicians in the United States. 
. . . But during the period that has elapsed since the Message 
of President Monroe was delivered in 1823, the doctrine has 
undergone a very notable development, and the aspect which it 
now presents in the hands of Mr. Olney differs widely from its 
character when it first issued from the pen of its author. . . . 
The dangers which were apprehended by President Monroe 



The Cleveland Democracy 537 

have no relation to the state of things in which we live at the 
present day. There is no danger of any Holy Alliance imposing 
its system upon any portion of the American Continent, and 
there is no danger of any European State treating any part of 
the American Continent as a fit object for European coloniza- 
tion. . . . Great Britain is imposing no '' system " upon Vene- 
zuela, and is not concerning herself in any way with the nature 
of the political institutions under which the Venezuelans may 
prefer to live. But the British Empire and the Republic of 
Venezuela are neighbors, and they have differed for some time 
past, and continue to differ, as to the line by which their domin- 
ions are separated. It is a controversy with which the United 
States have no apparent practical concern. . . . 

The Government of the United States ... lay down that the 
doctrine of President Monroe . . . confers on them the right of 
demanding that when a European Power has a frontier differ- 
ence with a South American community, the European Power 
shall consent to refer that controversy to arbitration ; and Mr. 
Olney states that unless Her Majesty's Government accede to 
this demand, it will " greatly embarrass the future relations 
between Great Britain and the United States." 

Whatever may be the authority of the doctrine laid down by 
President Monroe, there is nothing in his language to show that 
he ever thought of claiming this novel prerogative for the United 
States. . . . [Arbitration] has proved itself valuable in many 
cases ; but it is not free from defects. ... It is not always easy to 
find an Arbitrator who is competent, and who at the same time 
is wholly free from bias ; and the task of insuring compliance 
with the Award when it is made is not exempt from difficulty. . . . 

In the remarks which I have made, I have argued on the 
theory that the Monroe doctrine in itself is sound. I must not, 
however, be understood as expressing any acceptance of it on 
the part of Her Majesty's Government. It must always be 
mentioned with respect, on account of the distinguished states- 
man to whom it is due, and the great nation who have generally 
adopted it. But international law is founded on the general con- 
sent of nations; no statesman, however eminent, and no nation, 
however powerful, are competent to insert into the code of 



53^ History of the Repiiblic since the Civil War 

international law a novel principle. . . . The United States have 
a right, like any other nation, to interpose in any controversy 
by which their own interests are affected ; they are the judge 
whether those interests are touched, and in what measure they 
should be sustained. But their rights are in no Vvay strengthened 
or extended by the fact that the controversy affects some territory 
which is called American. . . . The Government of the United 
States is not entitled to affirm as a universal proposition, with 
reference to a number of independent States for whose conduct 
it assumes no responsibility, that its interests are necessarily 
concerned in whatever may befall those States simply because 
they are situated in the Western Hemisphere. . . . 

President Cleveland sent Olney's dispatch and Lord 
Salisbury's reply to Congress on December 17, 1895, ac- 
companied by a vigorous message, which was hailed with 
enthusiasm by half the nation as a brave assertion of our 
national honor, and deplored by the other half as a piece 
of blustering jingoism, whose only effect would be to 
raise a horrid war cloud to spoil the bright holiday season. 
After stating Lord Salisbury's position on the Monroe 
Doctrine, Cleveland said : 

Without attempting extended argument in reply to these posi- 
tions, it may not be amiss to suggest that the doctrine upon 
which we stand is strong and sound, because its enforcement 
is important to our peace and safety as a nation, and is essential 
to the integrity of our free institutions and the tranquil mainte- 
nance of our distinctive form of government. It was intended 
to apply to every stage of our national life, and cannot become 
obsolete while our Republic endures. If the balance of power 
is justly a cause for jealous anxiety among the governments of 
the Old World and a subject for our absolute non-interference, 
none the less is the observance of the Monroe Doctrine of vital 
concern to our people and their Government. . . . 

It will be seen from the correspondence herewith submitted 
that this proposition [of arbitration] has been declined by the 



The Cleveland Deviocracy 5 39 

British Government upon grounds which in the circumstances 
seem to me to be far from satisfactory. It is deeply disappoint- 
ing that such an appeal, actuated by the most friendly feelings 
towards both nations directly concerned, addressed to the sense 
of justice and to the magnanimity of one of the great powers 
of the world, and touching its relations to one comparatively 
weak and small, should have produced no better results. 

The course to be pursued by this Government in view of the 
present condition does not appear to admit of serious doubt. 
Having labored faithfully for many years to induce Great Britain 
to submit their dispute to impartial arbitration, and having been 
finally apprised of her refusal to do so, nothing remains but to 
accept the situation, to recognize its plain requirements, and deal 
with it accordingly. . . o Assuming that the attitude of Venezuela 
will remain unchanged, the dispute has reached such a stage as 
to make it now incumbent upon the United States to take 
measures to determine with sufficient certainty for its justifica- 
tion what is the true divisional line between the Republic of 
Venezuela and British Guiana. The inquiry to that end should, 
of course, be conducted carefully and judicially ; and due weight 
should be given to all available evidence, records, and facts in 
support of the claims of both parties.-^ . . . 

When such report is made and accepted, it will, in my opinion, 
be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its 
power, as a wilful aggression upon its rights and interests, the 
appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of 
governmental jurisdiction over any territory which after investi- 
gation we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela. 

In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the 
responsibility incurred, and keenly realize all the consequences 
that may follow. 

I am, nevertheless, firm in my conviction that while it is 
a grievous thing to contemplate the two great English-speaking 

1 In accordance with the president's recommendation, Congress 
passed a law on December 21, authorizing the appointment of a com- 
mission to investigate the true boundary line and appropriating $100,000 
for the expenses of the commission. For the work of the commission 
see Muzzey, An American History, p. 567. 



540 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

peoples of the world as being otherwise than friendly competitors 
in the onward march of civilization, and strenuous and worthy 
rivals in all the arts of peace, there is no calamity which a great 
nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine 
submission to wrong and injustice, and the consequent loss of 
national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and 
defended a people's safety and greatness. 

We conclude this section with two comments of the 
British press on the message just quoted, the first {a) from 
The Saturday Review (weekly) of December 21, 1895 ; 
the second {b) from The National Review (monthly) of 
January, 1896. 

{a) 

President Cleveland's second Message to Congress, in answer 
to Lord Salisbury, is handled in another column as a fair speci- 
men of '' American Election Literature." We wish to draw 
attention here to the fact that Lord Salisbury's answer to 
Mr. Secretary Olney was not only not provocative, but emi- 
nently conciliatory. Lord Salisbury went so far as to accept the 
Monroe Doctrine in exactly the form in which, according to 
Mr. Goldwin Smith, it is held by the majority of Ainericans ; 
he expressed his full agreement in the view " that any disturb- 
ance of the existing territorial distribution in the Western hemi- 
sphere by any fresh acquisition on the part of any European 
State would be a highly inexpedient change." It has been 
admitted by several of the more serious American journals,^ 
that President Cleveland's Message in reply is not only unjusti- 
fiably arrogant, but hostile in tone to a degree almost without 
precedent in diplomatic communications. 

The truth of the matter is that President Cleveland, having 
at length realized that his tariff-policy had cost the Democratic 
party New Jersey and Kentucky, resolved to win the support 
of the Irish and Jingoes in the United States by twisting the 

1 Notably the Evoiing Post, the New York World, the New York 
Herald, and the Boston Herald. 



i 



The Cleveland Democracy 541 

British lion's tail. Unluckily the Republican Senators drew him 
into a declaration of '' spirited foreign policy " six months too 
soon. His Message is already being ridiculed with impartial 
criticism. The London Stock Exchange has shown an exact 
and humorous appreciation of the situation by telegraphing to 
,the New York Stock Exchange its hope that in the event of 
hostilities between the two countries the British warships would 
not have their movements interfered with by irresponsible ex- 
cursion steamers issuing from New York and other ports. The 
New York Exchange, we understand, has replied to the effect 
that they hope that our warships are better than our yachts.^ 
In fine, the sensible people on both sides of the water have 
recognized that President Cleveland has played Dogberry to no 
purpose. He has written himself down an ass, and that is about 
all he has accomplished. 

{V) 

It is unnecessary to say that the dominating event of the past 
month has been President Cleveland's stupefying effort to plunge 
the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race into a bloody 
war. At the time of writing it is uncertain whether he will 
succeed or not ; now-a-days we find ourselves one moment in 
a tornado of sensational excitement, and the next in an almost 
enervating calm ; and it may be that by the time these pages 
are in the reader's hands, affairs will have resumed a compara- 
tively normal condition and the Americans will have recovered 
their sense of proportion. On the other hand it is just conceiv- 
able that Mr. Cleveland might strike a popular chord of hatred 
to England. The people of whom he is the official mouthpiece 
may be weary of peace and progress, and, having selected 
something '' cheap " to run into, are prepared to embark on 
an adventure against the British Empire. In any case a grave 
situation has been created, and with all the goodwill in the 
world — and we have not as a nation been unmindful of our 
kinship to the American people, from whom we have pocketed 

1 Referring to the repeated attempts of the British yachts to "lift" 
the American cup in the races in New York Bay. 



542 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

affronts that we should not have tolerated at the hands of any 
other country, and which none of the older members of the 
company of nations would offer one another unless war were 
intended — the incident, if it retains the modest dimensions of 
an " incident," cannot but affect the cordiality of our future 
relations with the United States. . . . 

For the moment it is irrelevant to examine the merits of the 
dispute ; let us assume that Venezuela is right on every point, 
and that the colony's [Guiana's] claim is a spurious one, which 
Lord Salisbury has adduced untenable arguments to support. 
Still the amenities of international intercourse among civilized 
nations are held to preclude recourse to public menace until 
every form of diplomatic expostulation has been exhausted. The 
disheartening aspect of this document to all who labor to 
strengthen the ties between English-speaking peoples lies in the 
fact that a popularity-seeking President of great experience in 
gauging the opinion of his countrymen, should think it worth 
while to read the United States out of the comity of nations in 
order to obtain the anti-English vote. 

115. Bry- The chief issue before the National Democratic Nomi- 

o?goid^'^°^^ nating Convention of 1896 at Chicago was the free coinage 

speech, Qf silver at the ratio of 16 to i. The majority report on 

July 9, 1896 

the platform favored the measure, but a strong mmority 
report, supporting the single gold standard was ably 
supported by Senator Hill of New York, Senator Vilas 
of Wisconsin, and ex-Governor Russell of Massachusetts. 
The debate was closed by the Honorable William J. Bryan 
of Nebraska, with an ardent speech in favor of free silver, 
which won him the Democratic nomination for the presi- 
dency and brought him into the prominent position in Amer- 
ican politics which he has occupied now for twenty years. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention : 

I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against 
the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this 



The Cleveland Democracy 543 

were a mere measuring of abilities ; but this is not a contest 
between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when 
clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the 
hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as 
holy as the cause of liberty — the cause of humanity. 

With a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the crusaders 
who followed Peter the Hermit, our silver Democrats went forth 
from victory to victory until they are now assembled, not to 
discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment already 
rendered by the plain people of this country. . . . 

When you (turning to the gold delegates) come before us 
and tell us that we are about to disturb your business interests, 
we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your 
course. We say to you that you have made the definition of a 
business man too limited in its application. The man who is 
employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; 
the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as 
the corporation counsel in a great metropolis ; the merchant 
at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the mer- 
chant of New York ; the farmer who goes forth in the morn- 
ing and toils all day — who begins in the spring and toils all 
summer — and who by the application of brain and muscle to 
the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much 
a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade 
and bets upon the price of grain ; the miners who go down a 
thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon 
the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious 
metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much 
business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back 
room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for 
this broader class of business men. . . . 

We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of con- 
quest ; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, 
and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been 
scorned ; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been dis- 
regarded ; we have begged, and they have mocked when our 
calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we 
petition no more. We defy them. . . . 



544 History of tJie Republic since the Civil War 

We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin 
and issue money is a function of our government. We believe 
it. We believe that it is a part of sovereignty, and that it can 
no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than . . . 
the power to make penal statutes or levy taxes. Mr. Jefferson, 
who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to 
have differed in opinion from the gentleman [Senator Vilas] who 
has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are 
opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money 
is a function of the bank, and that the Government ought to go 
out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than 
with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is 
a function of government, and that the banks ought to go out 
of the governing business. . . . 

And now, my friends, let me come to the paramount issue. 
If they ask us why it is that we say more on the money ques- 
tion than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that, if pro- 
tection has slain its thousands, the gold standard has slain its 
tens of thousands. If they ask us why we do not embody in 
our platform all the things that we believe in, we reply that 
when we have restored the money of the Constitution all other 
necessary reforms will be possible ; but that until this is done 
there is no other reform that can be accomplished. . . . 

Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between 
" the idle holders of idle capital " and '' the struggling masses 
who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country " ; 
and, my friends, the question we are to decide is : Upon which 
side will the Democratic party fight ? . . . That is the question 
which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered 
by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic 
party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling 
masses who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic 
party. There are two ideas of government. There are those 
who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do 
prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. 
The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to 
make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way 
up through every class which rests upon them. 



The Cleveland Democi'acy 545 

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor 
of the gold standard ; we reply that the great cities rest upon 
our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave 
our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic ; 
but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of 
every city in the country. 

My friends, we declare that this nation is able to legislate for 
its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid 
or consent of any other nation on earth ; and upon that issue 
we expect to carry every State in the Union. I shall not slander 
the inhabitants of the fair State of Massachusetts nor the in- 
habitants of the State of New York by saying that, when they 
are confronted with the proposition, they will declare that this 
nation is not able to attend to its own business. It is the issue 
of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but three millions in 
number, had the courage to declare their political independence 
of every other nation ; shall we, their descendants, when we 
have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less inde- 
pendent than our forefathers ? No, my friends, that will never 
be the verdict of our people. Therefore we care not upon what 
lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but 
that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply 
that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we 
will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism 
because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in 
the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, 
we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the pro- 
ducing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the 
commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers every- 
where, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by say- 
ing to them : You shall not press down upon the brow of labor 
this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a 
cross of gold 1 



CHAPTER XX 

ENTERING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

The Spanish War and the Philippines 

116. The The Spanish War of 1898 and the consequent subjuga- 

imtferiaUsm ^ion of the Phihppine Islands were, in the opinion of a 
[583] great many people in our country, prompted by an un- 
worthy desire to extend our markets and an unholy zeal 
to depart from the principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and ape imperialistic Britain in dominating the 
" inferior races " of the Orient. In an editorial entitled 
"At the Bar of History," the Nation of July 4, 1901, 
maintained that President McKinley had weakly allowed 
Congress to bully him into an unjust war. 

After keeping us for more than three years in the dark, the 
Administration has at last deigned to publish the diplomatic 
correspondence leading up to the war with Spain. ^ This was 
at first promised in connection with the President's war mes- 
sage of April Ti, 1898 ; but on second thought, it was stated, 
Mr. McKinley determined that it would not be '' prudent " to 
give out the documents at that time. As we read them now, it 
is easy to agree that it would have been a piece of terrible im- 
prudence to give them to the world then, since they prove that 
the war was needless. This tardy publication of the dispatches 
makes it impossible to deny what, in fact, Minister Woodford, 
Senator Hoar, and Hon. George S. Boutwell openly asserted 
in 1898, that there would have been no war but for the violence 
of Congress and the weakness of the President. 

1 House Documents, 55th Congress, 3d session, Vol. I, No. i, 
President's Message and Foreign Relations, 1898, pp. 558-1085. 

546 



Entering tJic Tzvcnticth Ccntuiy 547 

From the official correspondence we learn the truth of the 
statement made by Mr. Boutelle in explanation of his vote 
against the war — namely, that " Spain had conceded nearly every 
one of our demands, and seemed plainly disposed to meet them 
all," so that, but for the insane fury of Congress, before which 
Mr. McKinley fell terrorized, we should, as Minister Woodford 
said publicly in Boston in October, 1898, have seen the Spanish 
flag leave Cuba " without the firing of a shot or the loss of a life." 

The proof is very simple. It lies on the face of the dispatches. 
Passing by all the preliminaries, we find Secretary [of State] 
Day, .on March 27, 1898, telegraphing instructions to Minister 
Woodford [at Madrid] to make three demands : 

''First, Armistice until Oct. i. Negotiations meantime look- 
ing for peace between Spain and insurgents through friendly 
offices of President United States. 

Second, Immediate revocation of reconcentrado order.^ . . . 
Add, if possible. 

Third, If terms of peace not satisfactorily settled by Octo- 
ber I, President of the United States to be final arbiter between 
Spain and insurgents. . . ." ^ 

Now, what followed t On March 3 1 the reconcentrado order 
was revoked and a special credit of 3,000,000 pesetas put at the 
disposal of Governor-General Blanco to care for the homeless 
Cubans. There was our demand number two promptly complied 
with. The offer to concede demand number one was cabled by 

1 This famous order, converting a large part of Cuba into a camp, was 
issued by General Valeriano Weyler, from Havana, February 16, 1896. 

Article I. All inhabitants of the district of . . . and the provinces of . . . 
will have to concentrate in places which are the headquarters of a division . . . 
within eight days of the publication of this proclamation in the municipalities. 

Article II. To travel in the country in the radius covered by the columns 
in operation, it is absolutely indispensable to have a pass. . . . Any one lacking 
this will be detained and sent to headquarters of divisions or brigades, and thence 
to Havana, at my disposition, by the first possible means. 

Article III. All owners of commercial establishments in the country dis- 
tricts will vacate them. . . . 

Article IV. All passes hitherto issued become null and void. — Senate 
Documents, Vol. XXV, 56th Congress, 2d session, Part VII, p. 883. 

2 House Documents, 55th Congress, 3d session, Vol. I, No. i, 
pp. 711-712. 



548 History of the RepiLblic since the Civil War 

Minister Woodford on April 5. It is the critical dispatch of the 
whole volume, and its suppression till now certainly shows an 
extraordinary degree of " prudence," and possibly something 
else, in the President. We publish it in full, and we ask for it 
the careful attention of those clergymen and church people who 
were driving Congress on to war. 

" Should the Queen proclaim the following before 1 2 o'clock 
noon of Wednesday, April 6, will you sustain the Queen, and 
can you prevent hostile action by Congress ? 

At the request of the Holy Father, in this Passion Week, and 
in the 7iame of Christ, I prochmji i?mnediate and unco7iditio?ial 
suspension of hostilities in the Ishuid of Cuba. This suspension 
is to become immediately effective, so soon as accepted by the iii- 
surgents in that island, and is to co7iti?iue for the space of six 
months, to the ^^'^ day of October, i8g8. I do this to give time for 
passions to cease, and in the sincere hope afid belief that, durijig 
this suspension, permanent a?id honorable peace may be obtained 
betiveen the Insular Governme7it of Cuba and those of my sub- 
jects ifi that islafid who are now in rebellion against the authority 
of Spaifi. . . . 

Please read this in the light of all my previous telegrams and 
letters. I believe that this means peace, which the sober judg- 
ment of our people will approve long before next November, 
and which must be approved at the bar of final history. ... I 
dare not reject this last chance for peace. I will show your reply 
to the Queen in person, and I believe that you will approve this 
last conscientious effort for peace." ^ 

What could be more moving, more pathetic, more like an un- 
expected messenger of peace to be greeted with devout thank- 
fulness by all Christian hearts ? But how did McKinley greet it .? 
Why, he telegraphed Minister Woodford that he " highly appre- 
ciated the Queen's desire for peace," but that he could not " as- 
sume to influence the action of the American Congress." Yet, 
if an armistice were offered, he would " communicate that fact 
to Congress." ^ Yes, but how did he communicate it ? Did he 
cite a syllable of the pious and exalted language of the Queen .'' 

1 House Documents, loc. cit. p. 734. ^ Ibid. p. 735. 



Entering the Tweiitieth Century 549 

Did he explain how the venerable head of the Catholic Church 
had exerted himself to prevent a wicked war? No, he simply 
added a couple of vague and cold paragraphs at the very end 
of his message. . . . 

Yesterday, and since the preparation of the foregoing message, 
official information was received by me that the latest decree of the 
Queen Regent of Spain directs Gen. Blanco, in order to prepare and 
facilitate peace, to proclaim a suspension of hostilities, the duration 
and details of which have not yet been communicated to me. 

This fact, with every other pertinent consideration, will, I am 
sure, have your just and careful attention in the solemn deliberations 
upon which you are about to enter. If this measure attains a suc- 
cessful result, then our aspirations as a Christian, peace-loving people 
will be realized. If it fails, it will be only another justification for 
our contemplated action.^ 

Congress, of course, paid not the slightest attention to this 
perfunctory tail-end of a message, all the previous trend and 
argument of which made for war. What the President should 
have done was to throw away the message which he had pre- 
pared, face the altered situation with an altered policy, and go 
boldly to Congress and the country with Woodford's dispatch, 
including the Queen's elevated proclamation. ... He could have 
made peace certain. But, alas, the " stop-w^atch " of Congress 
was held on him, he had promised his alarmed and excited 
fellow-partisans to send in a war message and not let the Demo- 
crats win an advantage, and so " this last conscientious effort 
for peace," as Minister Woodford called it, this grandest oppor- 
tunity that ever came to a Christian President, was miserably 
neglected, and the war ensued. ... 

Dewey's splendid victory in Manila Bay on May i, 
1898, and the occupation of Manila by the American 
troops on August 13, put an end to Spain's power in 
the Philippines. Dewey telegraphed to the Secretary of 
the Navy, October 14, 1898, as follows : 

1 J. D. Richardson, ed. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 
Vol. X, p. 150. 



550 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

It is important that the disposition of the Philippine Islands 
should be decided as soon as possible and a strong government 
established. . . . General anarchy prevails without the limits of 
the city and bay of Manila. Strongly probable that islands to 
the South will fall into the same state soon. . . . The natives 
appear unable to govern. Dewey ^ 

Secretary Hay communicated this telegram to the five 
American peace commissioners at Paris. On October 25 
the commissioners telegraphed to Secretary Hay their 
opinions concerning the retention of the Philippines. 
Three of the commissioners were for holding all the 
islands ; the chairman, Mr. Day, v^^ould hold Luzon 
alone ; and Senator Gray of Delaware was opposed to 
holding any of the islands. Senator Gray said : 

The undersigned cannot agree that it is wise to take Philip- 
pines in whole or in part. To do so would be to reverse ac- 
cepted continental policy of country, declared and acted upon 
throughout our history. Propinquity governs case of Cuba and 
Puerto Rico. Policy proposed introduces us into European poli- 
tics and the entangling alliances against which Washington and 
all American statesmen have protested. It will make necessary 
a navy equal to the largest of powers, a greatly increased mili- 
tary establishment, immense sums for fortifications and harbors, 
multiplied occasions for dangerous complications with foreign 
nations, and increase burdens of taxation. Will receive in com- 
pensation no outlet for American labor in labor market already 
overcrowded and cheap, no area for homes for American citi- 
zens — climate and social conditions demoralizing to character 
of American youth. New and disturbing questions introduced 
into our politics, church question menacing. On the whole, 
instead of indemnity — injury. Undersigned cannot agree that 
any obligation incurred to insurgents is paramount to our mani- 
fest interests. Attacked Manila as part of legitimate war against 
Spain. If we had captured Cadiz and Carlists had helped us, 

1 House Documents, 55th Congress, 3d session, Vol. I, No. i, p. 928. 



Entermg the Tzvciitieth Century 5 5 i 

we should not owe duty to stay by them at close of war. On 
contrary, interest and duty would require us to abandon both 
Manila and Cadiz. No place for colonial administration or 
government of subject people in American system. 

So much from standpoint of interest. But even conceding 
all benefits claimed for annexation, we thereby abandon the in- 
finitely greater benefit to accrue from acting the part of a great, 
powerful, and Christian nation ; we exchange the moral gran- 
deur and strength to be gained by keeping our word to nations 
of the world and by exhibiting a magnanimity and moderation 
in the hour of victory that became the advanced civilization we 
claim, for doubtful material advantages and shameful stepping 
down from high moral position boastfully assumed. We should 
set example in these respects, not follow in the selfish and vul- 
gar greed for territory which Europe has inherited from mediae- 
val times. Our declaration of war upon Spain was accompanied 
by a solemn and deliberate declaration of our purpose. Now 
that we have achieved all and more than our object, let us simply 
keep our word. ... At the ver}^ least, let us adhere to Presi- 
dent's instructions, and if conditions require the keeping of 
Luzon forego the material advantages claimed in annexing other 
islands — above all, let us not make a mockery of the injunction 
contained in those instructions, where, after stating that '' we 
took up arms only in obedience to the dictates of humanity and 
in the fulfillment of high public and moral obligations," and that 
" we had no design of aggrandizement and no ambition of con- 
quest," the President, among other things, eloquently says: "It 
is my earnest wish that the United States in making peace 
should follow the same high rule of conduct which guided it in 
facing war. It should be as scrupulous and magnanimous in the 
concluding settlement as it was just and human in its original 
action." This and more, of which I earnestly ask a reperusal, 
binds my conscience and governs my action. 

[Signed] George Gray 

The most scathing condemnation of the imperialistic 
policy was voiced by Mr. Moorfield Storey, a distinguished 
Boston lawyer, President of the American Bar Association 



552 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

and later President of the Anti- Imperialist League, in a 
speech before the Bar Association of South Carolina at 
Columbia, June i6, 1903, entitled, ''What shall we do 
with our Dependencies ? " 

Our country today exercises absolute power over more than 
10,000,000 of human beings — Filipinos, Porto Ricans, Hawai- 
ians — twice as many as the whole population of the United 
States a century ago. Our dominion has been established with- 
out consulting them, and against such resistance as they could 
make. They are not American citizens, nor are they likely to 
become such. They are governed by the President and Congress, 
but they have no voice in the choice of either. They have no 
recognized rights under our Constitution ; and if the President 
by executive order or Congress by statute has granted to them 
any of the rights secured by the Constitution to all American 
citizens, they are merely privileges, which may be recalled at 
pleasure by a new order or a new statute. ... In a word, no 
part of the government under which they live derives its powers 
from their consent. They are merely subjects of the United 
States, as absolutely without political rights as if they were 
subjects of Spain. ^ 

The question which now confronts the American people, 
never to be settled '' till it is settled right," is whether these 
conditions shall continue. What shall be our permanent policy 
toward these dependent peoples } No more important question 
ever engaged our attention ; and we should consider it carefully 
and dispassionately, as Americans, and not as Republicans or 
Democrats, for we must all suffer alike the consequences of any 
mistake. . . . Above all, we must dare to look truth in the face. 
We gain nothing by deceiving ourselves. We cannot change the 
facts by refusing to see or hear them, nor will any misrepresen- 
tation of ours bend the laws which govern mankind and attach 
to our actions their inevitable consequences. If we cannot 

1 The grant of a national assembly to the Philippines a few years after 
Mr. Storey's address somewhat modified the conditions which he con- 
demns here so absolutely. See Muzzey, An American History, p. 585. 



Entering the Twe^itieth Century 553 

justify what we have done and what we propose, let us at least 
be brave enough to admit it. . . . 

Disguise it as we will, the claim of one people that it is 
superior to and therefore entitled to rule another rests upon no 
better moral foundation than the heathen maxim, " Might makes 
right." ... If we concede that a civilized nation has the right 
to govern any people who are unfit to govern themselves, who 
shall decide that such unfitness exists ? Can the decision safely 
be left to the stronger nation t Shall it be made by men who 
know nothing of the weaker people, who have never visited 
their country, who do not understand their language, their 
traditions, their character, or their needs.? Shall it be made 
without hearing their representatives and learning all they can 
tell about their countrymen ? Can we be sure that the judgment 
of the strong is not affected by appeals to national vanity, by 
apostrophes to the flag, by hopes of commercial advantage, 
by dreams of world power, by the exigencies of party politics, 
by personal ambitions . . . ? 

By what standards is inferiority to be measured ? . . . Does 
it not seem the height of presumption for us, in our ignorance, 
to claim that brown men are necessarily our inferiors, or that 
Asiatics, whose ideas govern the moral world, cannot govern 
themselves 1 Said James Russell Lowell : '' When the moral 
vision of a man becomes perverted enough to persuade him 
that he is superior to his fellow, he is in reality looking up at 
him from an immeasurable distance beneath." 

Let us proceed to a more important inquiry. If our new 
subjects cannot give themselves what we think a good govern- 
ment, are we likely to give them a better? Or is President 
Schurman right in saying, '' Any decent government of the 
Filipinos by the Filipinos is better than the best possible gov- 
ernment of Filipinos by Americans." Let us consider this 
question, bearing in mind certain fundamental principles. 

Fii'st. Every government should exist solely for the benefit 
of the governed. . . . 

Second. The object of every government should be to edu- 
cate, develop, and elevate the people . . . not to develop mines, 



554 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

increase commerce, and add to the world's wealth without regard 
to the people. 

Thi?'d. In order to develop a people, their rulers must under- 
stand them and believe in them. ... If a ruler feels contempt 
for his subjects, there is a mutual repulsion. . . . 

Fi?iaUy. Human experience has amply proved that no man 
can safely be trusted with absolute power. The struggle of 
men for freedom has ever been an attempt to create '' a gov- 
ernment of laws, and not of men." . . . 

But we are confidently told that we have succeeded already. 
. . . Let us concede the triumph of our arms ; but where shall 
we look for the triumph of our principles and our laws ? . . . 
We have destroyed a large part of the Filipino people. General 
Bell said that in two years before May, 1901, " one sixth of the 
natives of Luzon have either been killed or had died of dengue 
fever." . . . We have laid waste their fields, we have destroyed 
both crops and cultivators, we have burned villages and towns, 
leaving the people homeless, we have adopted the reconcentra- 
tion policy of General Weyler, and have borrowed mediaeval 
tortures from Spain, in order to aid our policy of conquest. . . . 
We found 7,000,000 of people friendly and prosperous. We 
have reduced them to straits like these. We have destroyed 
more Filipino life and property in four years than Spain in her 
centuries of rule. Is this success ? 

We have sent to the islands nearly 125,000 of our citizens, 
many of whom have been killed, many more disabled by wounds 
and disease, many made insane, and a very large number so 
demoralized as to regard torture, reconcentration, and the 
slaughter of prisoners and non-combatants as right ! Is this 
success ? 

We have spent hundreds of millions, drawn from the taxes 
of the people, on this war : and the end is not yet. ... Is this 
success ? 

We have stricken down the first republican government ever 
established in Asia, and have turned millions of cordial friends 
into bitter enemies. Is this success ? 

Finally, we have abandoned the ideals and principles of 
liberty which we have cherished from our birth, and have 



Entering the Twentieth Ceitttiry 555 

adopted the principles and practices of tyranny, which we have 
always condemned. Again I ask, Is this success ? 

We have proved abundantly the truth of Lincoln's words : 
" No man 's good enough to govern another without that other's 
consent." . . . 

What do we gain ? Commercial expansion. If the whole 
commerce of the Orient were offered us at such a price, had 
we the right to pay it ? , . . 

No, our policy has not succeeded. It has failed, and its failure 
is written in blood on every fold of the flag which we loved to 
call '' the flag of the free." It is written on the fresh graves, 
the ruined homes, and the barren fields of the conquered islands. 
It is written in the sullen hearts of the Filipinos, who cannot but 
remember our cruelties, and, in the President's own words, '' will 
for centuries remain alien and hostile to the conquerors." It is 
written also in the hardened hearts of our countrymen, who 
have forgotten their ideals and have learned to tolerate and to 
approve what they have always execrated. . . . 

When Guizot asked Lowell how long our republic would last, 
he replied, '' As long as the ideas of the men who founded it 
continue dominant." . . . We cannot destroy the ideals of the 
nation ; we cannot insist that the Declaration of Independence 
is wrong ; we cannot govern millions of men outside the Con- 
stitution ; we cannot hold a single Filipino, like Mabini, a pris- 
oner without trial or sentence, — and hope to preserve in full 
strength that faith in the equal rights of man which is the soul 
of this nation. . . . 

The time will come, if this republic is to endure, when an 
overwhelming public sentiment will make itself felt, and we shall 
do what every true American in his heart would like to have his 
country do — give the Filipinos their freedom, and thus regain 
that ""proud position among the nations of the world which we 
have lost, the moral leadership of mankind, becoming again . . . 
the great nation . . . beneath whose flag, wherever it floats in 
this wide world, there is no room for a subject, but a sure refuge 
for every man who desires that freedom which is the birthright 
of every human being. 



556 History of the Republic since the Civil War 



The Roosevelt Policies 

117. The The following text of the convention of 1903 between 

Variiia" ^^e United States and the new Republic of Panama for 
Treaty, ^^g construction of a ship canal throus^h the Isthmus is 

November i8, ^ ^ 

1903 taken from W. M. Malloy's "Treaties, Conventions, In- 

[602] ternational Acts, Protocols, and Agreements between the 
United States and Other Powers," a compilation, in two 
large volumes, made in accordance with a resolution of 
the Senate, January 18, 1909. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla 
Treaty was ratified and proclaimed in February, 1904. In 
May, 1904, the *' dirt began to fly " at Panama. Almost ex- 
actly ten years later the first ship passed through the Canal. 

The United States of America and the Republic of Panama 
being desirous to insure the construction of a ship canal across 
the Isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans, and the Congress of the United States of America 
having passed an act approved June 28, 1902, in furtherance 
of that object, by which the President of the United States is 
authorized to acquire within a reasonable time the control of the 
necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia, and the sov- 
ereignty of such territory being actually vested in the Republic 
of Panama, the high contracting parties have resolved for 
that purpose to conclude a convention and have accordingly 
appointed as their plenipotentiaries, — 

The President of the United States, John Hay, Secretary of" 
State, and 

The Government of the Republic of Panama, Philippe Bunau- 
Varilla, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of 
the Republic of Panama, thereunto especially empowered by 
said government : who after communicating with each other 
their respective full powers, found to be in good and due form, 
have agreed upon and concluded the following articles. 

Article I. The United States guarantees and will maintain 
the independence of the Republic of Panama. 



Entering the Twentieth Century 557 

Article II. The Republic of Panama grants to the United 
States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone 
of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, 
operation, sanitation and protection of said Canal, of the width 
of ten miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side 
of the center line of the route of Canal to be constructed . . . 
with the proviso that the cities of Panama and Colon and the 
harbors adjacent to said cities . . . shall not be included within 
this grant [see Article VII] 

Article V. The Republic of Panama grants to the United 
States in perpetuity a monopoly for the construction, mainte- 
nance, and operation of any system of communication by means 
of canal or railroad across its territory between the Caribbean 
Sea and the Pacific Ocean. 

Article VI. The grants herein contained shall in no manner 
invalidate the titles or rights of private landholders or owners 
of private property in the said zone. ... All damages caused 
to the owners of private lands or private property of any kind 
by reason of the grants contained in this treaty or by reason of 
the operations of the United States . . . shall be appraised and 
settled by a joint Commission appointed by the governments 
of the United States and the Republic of Panama, whose deci- 
sions as to such damages shall be final, and whose awards as to 
such damages shall be paid solely by the United States. . . . The 
appraisal of such private lands and private property and the 
assessment of damages to them shall be based upon their value 
before the date of this convention. 

Article VII. The Republic of Panama grants to the United 
States within the limits of the cities of Panama and Colon and 
their adjacent harbors and within the territory adjacent thereto 
the right to acquire by purchase or by the exercise of the right 
of eminent domain, any lands, buildings, water rights or other 
properties necessary and convenient for the construction ... of 
the Canal, and of any works of sanitation, such as the collection 
and disposition of sewage and the distribution of water in the 
said cities of Panama and Colon. . . . All such works of sanita- 
tion . . . shall be made at the expense of the United States, and 
the Government of the United States . . . shall be authorized to 



558 History of tJie Republic since the Civil War 

impose and collect water rates and sewerage rates which shall 
be sufficient to provide for the payment of interest and the 
amortization of the principal of the cost of said works within a 
period of fifty years, and upon the expiration of said term of 
fifty years the system of sewers and water works shall revert 
to and become the properties of the cities of Panama and Colon 
respectively. . . . The Republic of Panama agrees that the cities 
of Panama and Colon shall comply in perpetuity with the sani- 
tary ordinances whether of a preventive or curative character 
prescribed by the United States. . . . 

Article IX. The United States agrees that the ports at 
either entrance of the Canal and the waters thereof, and the 
Republic of Panama agrees that the towns of Panama and 
Colon shall be free for all time, so that there shall not be im- 
posed or collected custom house tolls, tonnage ... or taxes of 
any kind upon any vessel using or passing through the Canal 
. . . except such tolls and charges as may be imposed by the 
United States for the use of the Canal. . . . The United States 
shall have the right to make use of the towns and harbors of 
Panama and Colon as places of anchorage, and for making re- 
pairs, for loading, unloading, depositing, or transshipping cargoes 
either in transit or destined for the service of the Canal. . . . 

Article X. The Republic of Panama agrees that there shall 
not be imposed any taxes national, municipal, departmental or 
of any other class upon the Canal ... or railroad and auxiliary 
works, or their officers or employees situated within the cities 
of Panama and Colon. . . . 

Article XI. The United States agrees that the official dis- 
patches of the Government of the Republic of Panama shall be 
transmitted over any telegraph and telephone lines established 
for Canal purposes and used for public and private business at 
rates not higher than those required from officials in the service 
of the United States. . » . 

Article XIV. As the price or compensation for the rights, 
powers and privileges granted in this convention by the Repub- 
lic of Panama . . . the Government of the United States agrees 
to pay to the Republic of Panama the sum of ten million dollars 
($10,000,000) in gold coin of the United States on the exchange 



Eutei'ing tJie Twentieth Century 559 

of the ratification of this convention and also an annual pay- 
ment during the life of this convention of two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars ($250,000) in like gold coin, beginning nine 
years after the date aforesaid. . . . 

Article XVI. The two Governments shall make adequate 
provision by future agreement for the pursuit, capture, imprison- 
ment, detention, and delivery within said zone and auxiliary lands 
to the authorities of the Republic of Panama of persons charged 
with the commitment of crimes, felonies or misdemeanors with- 
out said zone [and vice versa]. . . } 

Article XVIII. The Canal, when constructed, and the en- 
trances thereto shall be neutral in perpetuity, and shall be opened 
upon the terms provided for by Section I of Article III . . . of 
the treaty entered into by the Governments of the United States 
and Great Britain on November 18, 1901.^ 

Article XIX. The Government of the Republic of Panama 
shall have the right to transport over the Canal its vessels and 
its troops and munitions of war in such vessels at all times 
without paying charges of any kind. . . . 

Article XXIII. If it should become necessary at any time 
to employ armed forces for the safety or protection of the 
Canal . . . the United States shall have the right, at all times 
and in its discretion, to use its police and its land and naval 
forces or to establish fortifications for these purposes. . . . 

1 An extradition treaty in twelve articles was concluded May 25, 
1904, between W. W. Russell, our charge d'affaires in Panama, and 
Tomas Arias, secretary of the Panama government. It may be found 
in Malloy's "Treaties, Conventions," etc.. Vol. II, pp. 1357-1361. 

2 The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, rescinding the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 
of 1850. The section in question reads : " The Canal shall be free and 
open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing 
these Rules, on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no dis- 
crimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in 
respect of the conditions or charges of traffic or otherwise. Such con- 
ditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable " (Malloy, Trea- 
ties . . . and Agreements between the United States and Other Powers, 
Vol. I, p. 783). It was in obedience to what he believed our pledged 
duty in this section that President Wilson secured from Congress in 
1914 the repeal of the law of 191 2 exempting United States vessels 
from toll charges when using the Canal in their coasting trade. 



560 History of the Repjiblic since the Civil War 

Article XXVI . This convention when signed by the Pleni- 
potentiaries of the Contracting Parties shall be ratified by the 
respective Governments and the ratifications shall be exchanged 
at Washington at the earliest date possible. . . . 

Done at the city of Washington the 18''^ day of November 
in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and three. 

John Hay [seal] 
P. Bunau-Varilla [seal] 

118. Roose- As early as March, 1891, Congress had passed a Con- 
to the gov- servation Act authorizing the President to withdraw from 

ernors, entry for public sale such tracts of forest lands as he saw 

May 13, 1908 •' ^ 



1598] 



fit, and Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley had all availed 
themselves to some extent of this authorization. But 
Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to interest him- 
self heartily and continuously in the policy of the conserva- 
tion of our national resources. Addressing the Society of 
American Foresters on March 26, 1903, he said : 

Your attention must be directed to the preservation of the 
forests, not as an end in itself, but as a means of preserving 
the prosperity of the Nation. ... In the arid regions of the 
West agriculture depends first of all upon the available water 
supply. In such a region forest protection alone can maintain 
the stream flow necessary for irrigation, and can prevent the 
great and destructive floods so ruinous to communities farther 
down the same streams.^ 

A little later he appointed an Inland Waterways Commis- 
sion at the suggestion of Gifford Pinchot, chief of the 
National Forest Service. While engaged on a trip of inspec- 
tion down the Mississippi River, from St. Paul to Memphis, 
October 1-4, 1907, this commission conceived the plan 
which was expressed to the President in the following letter : 

1 Proceedings of a Conference of Governors in the White House, 
1908, p. V, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1909. 



E^itering the Twentieth Century 561 

Oct. 3, 1907 

The President 

On board the U.S. Steamer Mississippi. 

Sir: In the course of inquiries made under your direction 
" that the Inland Waterways Commission shall consider the 
relations of the streams to the use of all the great permanent 
natural resources and their conservation for the making and 
maintenance of prosperous homes," the members of the Com- 
mission have been led to feel that it would be desirable to hold 
a Conference on the general subject of the conservation of the 
natural resources of the Nation. Among the reasons for such 
a Conference are the following : 

1. Hitherto our National policy has been one of almost un- 
restricted disposal of natural resources, and this in more lavish 
measure than in any other nation in the world's history ; and 
this policy of the Federal Government has been shared by 
the constituent States. Three consequences have ensued : First, 
unprecedented consumption of natural resources ; second, ex- 
haustion of these resources to the extent that a large part of 
our available public lands have passed into great estates or cor- 
porate interests, our forests are so depleted as to multiply the 
cost of forest products, and our supplies of coal and iron ore 
are so far reduced as to enhance prices ; and third, unequalled 
opportunity for private monopoly, to the extent that both the 
Federal and the State sovereignties have been compelled to 
enact laws for the protection of the People. 

2. We are of the opinion that the time has come for consid- 
ering the policy of conserving these material resources on which 
the permanent prosperity of our country and the equal oppor- 
tunity of all our People must depend ; we are also of opinion 
that the policy of conservation is so marked an advance on that 
policy adopted at the outset of our National career as to 
demand the consideration of both Federal and State sponsors 
for the welfare of the People. 

3. We are of opinion that the Conference may best be held 
in the National Capital next winter, and that the conferees should 
comprise the Governors of all our States and Territories, a 
limited number of delegates to be appointed by each Governor, 



562 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

and representatives from leading organizations of both State 
and National scope, engaged in dealing with National resources 
or with practical questions relating thereto. 

We have the honor to ask that in case you concur in our 
view you call such a Conference. 

Respectfully submitted 

Theodore E. Burton, Chairman 
W. J. McGee, Secretary 

The President, in heartiest accord with the proposition, 
invited the governors of the states, each accompanied by 
three select citizens, to meet with the senators and repre- 
sentatives of the sixtieth Congress, the justices of the 
Supreme Court, and the members of the cabinet at the 
White House, May 13-15, 1908, to discuss the best method 
of conserving our national resources. The governors of 
thirty-eight states and territories, with their companions, 
and over a hundred specially invited guests attended the 
conference. President Roosevelt delivered the following 
speech at the opening session, May 13, 1908 : 

Governors of the Several States, and Gentlemen : 

I welcome you to this Conference at the White House. You 
have come hither at my request, so that we may join together 
to consider the question of the conservation and use of the 
great fundamental sources of wealth of this Nation. 

So vital is this question, that for the first time in our history- 
the chief executive officers of the States separately, and of the 
States together forming the Nation, have met to consider it. It 
is the chief material question that confronts us, second only — 
and second always — to the great fundamental questions of 
morality. . . . 

This Conference on the conservation of natural resources is 
in effect a meeting of the representatives of all the people of 
the United States called to consider the weightiest problem now 
before the Nation ; and the occasion for the meeting lies in the 
fact that the natural resources of our country are in danger of 



Entering the Twentieth Century 563 

exhaustion if we permit the old wasteful methods of exploiting 
them longer to continue. . . . 

In the development, the use, and therefore the exhaustion of 
certain of the natural resources, the progress has been more 
rapid in the last century and a quarter than during all preceding 
time of which we have record. 

When the founders of this nation met at Independence Hall 
in Philadelphia the conditions of commerce had not fundamen- 
tally changed from what they were when the Phoenician keels 
first furrowed the lonely waters of the Mediterranean. . . . Min- 
ing was carried on fundamentally as it had been carried on by 
the Pharaohs in the countries adjacent to the Red Sea. ... In 
1776 the wares of the merchants of Boston, of Charleston, like 
the wares of the merchants of Nineveh and Sidon, if they went 
by water, were carried by boats propelled by sails or oars ; if 
they went by land, were carried in wagons drawn by beasts of 
draft or in packs on the backs of beasts of burden. ... In 
Washington's time anthracite coal was known only as a useless 
black stone ; and the great fields of bituminous coal were undis- 
covered. . . . But a few small iron deposits had been found in 
this country, and the use of iron by our countrymen was very 
small. . . . The forests were regarded chiefly as obstructions to 
settlement and cultivation. The man who cut down a tree was 
held to have conferred a service on his fellows. ... It is almost 
impossible for us in this day to realize how little our Revolu- 
tionary ancestors knew of the great store of natural resources 
whose discovery and use have been such vital factors in the 
growth and greatness of this Nation, and how little they needed 
to take from this store in order to satisfy their needs. 

Since then our knowledge and use of the present territory 
of the United States have increased a hundred-fold. . . . Our 
growth has been due to the rapid development, and alas that it 
should be said ! to the rapid destruction, of our natural resources. 
Nature has supplied to us in the United States, and still sup- 
plies to us, more kinds of resources in a more lavish degree 
than has ever been the case at any other time or with any other 
people. Our position in the world has been attained by the 
extent and thoroughness of the control we have achieved over 



564 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

nature ; but we are more, and not less, dependent upon what 
she furnishes than at any previous time of history since the 
days of primitive man. . . . We want to take action that will 
prevent the advent of a woodless age, and defer as long as 
possible the advent of an ironless age. . . . 

This Nation began with the belief that its landed possessions 
were illimitable and capable of supporting all the people who 
might care to make our country their home ; but already the 
limit of unsettled land is in sight, and indeed but little land fitted 
for agriculture now remains unoccupied save what can be re- 
claimed by irrigation and drainage — a subject with which this 
Conference is partly to deal. We began with an unapproached 
heritage of forests : more than half of the timber is gone. We 
began with coal fields more extensive than those of any other 
nation and with iron ores regarded as inexhaustible, and many 
experts now declare that the end of both iron and coal is 
in sight. . 

The mere increase in our consumption of coal during 1907 
over 1906 exceeded the total consumption in 1876, the Centen- 
nial year . . . and we thought we were pretty busy people even 
then. The enormous stores of mineral oil and gas are largely 
gone. . . . Our natural waterways are not gone, but they have 
been so injured by neglect . . . that there is less navigation on 
them now than there was fifty years ago. Finally, we began 
with soils of unexampled fertility, and we have so impoverished 
them by injudicious use and by failing to check erosion, that 
their crop-producing power is diminishing instead of increasing. 
In a word, we have thoughtlessly, and to a large degree un- 
necessarily, diminished the resources upon which not only our 
prosperity but the prosperity of our children and our children's 
children must always depend. . . . 

The natural resources I have enumerated can be divided into 
two sharply distinguished classes accordingly as they are or are 
not capable of renewal. Mines if used must necessarily be 
exhausted. The minerals do not and cannot renew themselves. 
Therefore in dealing with the coal, the oil, the gas, the iron, the 
metals generally, all that we can do is to try to see that they 
are wisely used. The exhaustion is certain to come in time. 



Entering the Tzventieth Centnry 565 

We can trust that it will be deferred long enough to enable the 
extraordinarily inventive genius of our people to devise means 
and methods for more or less adequately replacing what is lost ; 
but the exhaustion is sure to come. 

The second class of resources consists of those which can 
not only be used in such manner as to leave them undiminished 
for our children, but can actually be improved by wise use. The 
soil, the forests, the waterways come in this category. Every 
one knows that a really good farmer leaves his farm more valu- 
able at the end of his life than it was when he first took hold 
of it. So with the waterways. So with the forests. . . . 

Neither the primitive man nor the pioneer was aware of any 
duty to posterity in dealing with the renewable resources. When 
the American settler felled the forests, he felt that there was 
plenty of forest left for the sons who came after him. When he 
exhausted the soil of his farm, he felt that his son could go West 
and take up another. . . . When the soil-wash from the farmer's 
field choked the neighboring river, the only thought was to use 
the railway rather than the boats to move produce and supplies. 
That was so up to the generation that preceded ours. 

Now all this is changed. On the average the son of the 
farmer of today must make his living on his father's farm. There 
is no difficulty in doing this if the father will exercise wisdom. 
No wise use of a farm exhausts its fertility. So with the forests. 
We are on the verge of a timber famine in this countr}^, and it 
is unpardonable for the Nation or the States to permit any fur- 
ther cutting of our timber save in accordance with a system 
which will provide that the next generation shall see the timber 
increased instead of diminished. . . . 

We can, moreover, add enormous tracts of the most valuable 
possible agricultural land to the national domain by irrigation in 
the arid and semi-arid regions, and by drainage of great tracts 
of swamp land in the humid regions. We can enormously in- 
crease our transportation facilities by the canalization of our 
rivers so as to complete a great system of waterways on the 
Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts and in the Mississippi Valley, 
from the Great Plains to the Alleghenies and from the northern 
lakes to the mouth of the mighty Father of Waters. But all these 



566 History of the Repiiblic since the Civil War 

various uses of our natural resources are so closely connected 
that they should be coordinated and should be treated as part of 
one coherent plan and not in haphazard and piece-meal fashion. . . . 

We are coming to recognize as never before the right of the 
Nation to guard its own future in the essential matter of natural 
resources. In the past we have admitted the right of the indi- 
vidual to injure the future of the Republic for his own present 
profit. In fact there has been a good deal of a demand for un- 
restricted individualism. . . . The time has come for a change. 
As a people we have the right and the duty ... to protect our- 
selves and our children against the wasteful development of our 
natural resources, whether that waste is caused by the actual 
destruction of such resources or by making them impossible of 
development hereafter. , . . 

Finally, let us remember that the conservation of our natural 
resources, though the gravest problem of today, is yet but part 
of another and greater problem to which this Nation is not yet 
awake, but to which it will awake in time, and with which it 
must hereafter grapple if it is to live — the problem of national 
efficiency, the patriotic duty of assuring the safety and continu- 
ance of the Nation. When the People of the United States 
consciously undertake to raise themselves as citizens, and the 
Nation and the States in their several spheres, to the highest 
pitch of excellence in private. State, and national life, and to do 
this because it is the first of all the duties of true patriotism, then 
and not till then the future of this Nation, in quality and in time, 
will be assured. 

Present-Day Problems 

119. The An Industrial Commission of eighteen members was 

causes and appointed by act of Congress, June i8, 1898, "to investi- 
remedies gate questions pertaining to immigration, to labor, to agri- 
[610] culture, to manufacturing, to business, and to report to 
Congress and suggest such legislation as it may deem best 
upon these subjects." On December 4, 1901, the commis- 
sion submitted to Congress a report of a thousand pages 



Entering the Twentieth Century 567 

on industrial corporations, chiefly composed of the testi- 
mony of officers of the trusts before the commission. 
From a summary of the evidence prefixed to the report 
the following paragraphs are taken : 

It is clearly the opinion of most of those associated with in- 
dustrial combinations that the chief cause of their formation has 
been excessive competition. Naturally all business men desire 
to make profits, and they find their profits falling off first through 
the pressure of lowering prices of their competitors. The de- 
sire to lessen too vigorous competition naturally brings them 
together. . . . 

One or two of the witnesses considered the protective tariff 
as the chief cause of the trusts. They urged that high tariff 
duties, by shutting out foreign competition, make it easier for 
our manufacturers to combine to control prices, and they think 
that the experience of the last few years justifies the assertion. 
Likewise, they say, through the high profits that come from 
the exclusion of foreign competition by the tariff, capital has 
been attracted into industries here to so great an extent and 
with the expectation of so high profits, that home competition 
has been unduly stimulated, thereby leading to the formation 
of combinations. 

Some other witnesses believe that the tariff, while not the 
most important cause, has, nevertheless, some influence toward 
encouraging combinations ; while one witness, Mr. LaTaste, be- 
lieves that the monopoly of natural opportunities, under our 
present system of taxation, is to be considered the fundamental 
cause. 

Nearly all of the witnesses who have considered excessive com- 
petition as the chief cause do not agree that the tariff is to be 
looked on as a cause, nor as a rule do they concede that those 
engaged in the organization of combinations have any intention 
of securing a complete monopoly. It is, of course, true that the 
restriction of competition is a step towards monopoly, but com- 
petition has not been suppressed entirely, and they do not be- 
lieve that monopoly has been or can be secured. In most cases 
they would deny that a monopoly was in any respect desirable 



568 Histo7y of the Republic since the Civil War . 

In case of the newer combinations in the United States ^ it 
has been found that practically all the important ones are put 
into the form of a single large corporation. In many cases the 
new corporation buys the individual plants which it seems de- 
sirable to combine and thus becomes a single owner of all the 
establishments. In other cases, and this is perhaps true espe- 
cially with reference to the largest combinations, the stock of 
the constituent members is all bought by the single unifying 
company. The constituent companies then retain their organiza- 
tion intact, being controlled simply by the central corporation, 
as a stockholder, which can elect directors and officers at will 
and thus guide the management absolutely. . . . 

It is quite a general custom for a syndicate to be organized 
of individuals, bankers and others, who furnish whatever cash 
may be needed to purchase the different plants entering the 
combination, and who agree to take a certain proportion, if not 
all, of the new stock which is not taken by the vendors of the 
plants and by the public. . . . 

Several of the combinations which the Industrial Commission 
has been lately considering are able to control a very large por- 
tion of the entire output of the country, so that they have, per- 
haps, the power to effect [affect] prices. The National Cordage 
Company soon after its formation controlled probably from 60 to 
70 per cent of the entire business. . . . The American Smelting 
and Refining Company before the union with the Guggenheimers 
controlled about 85 per cent of the entire smelting business of 
the country. Since that combination it has substantially all the 
trade. . . . The Pittsburg Coal Company controls the bulk of 
the lake trade in coal, although there is a little competition from 
southern Ohio and western Virginia. It is so situated that it 
can practically dictate the prices in its entire market. The United 
States Steel Corporation is made up of companies engaged in 
various lines of business, from mining to finishing the higher 
grades of steel. It is probable that at the present time it 

^ That is, the trusts formed since the Republican victory of 1896 and 
the Spanish War : rubber, cordage, plate glass, wall paper, tobacco, 
sugar refining, smelting, oil, steel and iron, copper, thread, baking 
powder, coal, starch, biscuit, chemicals, leather, whiskey, asphalt, etc. 



Entering the TwentietJi Cejititry 569 

controls between 65 and 75 per cent of the steel industry in the 
United States. . . . The International Paper Company produces, 
probably, at the present time about 1,300 tons per day out of 
an entire output for the United States of over 2,000 tons per 
day of news print paper. . . . Mr. Pitcairn, president of the 
Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, says that that combination pro- 
duces about 72^ per cent of the plate glass product of this 
country. . . . The National Starch Company has also a large 
percentage of control, amounting to probably more than 90 per 
cent of the box starch used and a very large percentage of starch 
of other kinds. . . . Certain local companies, such as the Brook- 
lyn Union Gas Company, being natural monopolies, have abso- 
lute control of the markets, but their prices are determined to 
a considerable extent by legislation. . , . 

Speaking generally, the witnesses have been of the opinion 
that the effect of the combinations has been to increase wages, 
or, at any rate, that during the last two or three years under the 
combinations the wages have been somewhat higher than they 
had been before. It is acknowledged in many of these cases 
that this increase has been due to the prosperous condition of 
the country and to the fact that there has been a strong demand 
for labor. In most cases in the iron and steel manufacture, as 
well as in several other of the most important industries, the 
wages are arranged after consultation with the labor unions or 
with committees representing the employees, and a scale is agreed 
upon, in many cases this being a sliding scale dependent upon 
the price of the product. . . . 

Most of the witnesses have recognized that there are certain 
disadvantages connected with most combinations. . . . Mr. Holt 
is of the opinion that the trusts form a very corrupting influence 
in politics, largely owing to the fact that they are protected by 
the tariff, and in consequence have found it advisable to send 
agents to Congress to dictate tariff legislation. He thinks also 
that they deceive the public regarding the nature of the business 
and of the business of the country through juggling with prices 
and statistics. Mr. Hillyer, as well as some other witnesses, 
thinks that the aggregation of power brought about through 
combination is a dangerous element and a menace to the political 



570 History of the Republic sifice the Civil War 

independence of the people. Mr. Spalding endorses this opinion. 
He believes that it is natural for men to charge all that they can 
get. The combinations also, in his opinion, diminish individual 
effort and deprive the individual of the opportunity of rising. . . . 

Of the later witnesses that have been heard, the larger num- 
ber are of the opinion that comparatively few, if any, legislative 
remedies are needed. The witnesses whose inclinations are 
strongly toward free trade are of the opinion that the removal 
of the tariff on goods controlled by combinations would be the 
best . . . remedy. Most of the manufacturers object to having 
the tariff interfered with. . . . 

More of the witnesses think that something could be gained 
in the way of greater publicity regarding the business of the 
combinations. For example, Mr. Campbell thinks that corpora- 
tions whose stock is sold to the public on exchanges should be 
under Governmental control. He would be willing to have the 
regulation go even further than a mere publicity of accounts. 
Mr. White believes that the State has the right to say how the 
combinations should be regulated, and thinks it possible that 
some tax might ultimately be placed on what would be con- 
sidered excessive earnings, the actual earnings to be found out 
by a complete system of Governmental inspection of accounts. . . . 

Some of the witnesses speak distinctly against even any spe- 
cial degree of publicity. Mr. Schwab, for example, thinks that 
. . . though the stockholders are entitled to certain statements, 
even those should be somewhat limited. . . . Mr. Gunton ad- 
vises that, if possible, the combinations be put under a national 
charter. . . . Mr. Hillyer ^ thinks that the Sherman law [of 1890] 
should be rigidly enforced, and that the tariff should be removed; 
that there should be Government ownership so far as municipal 
combinations are concerned ; and, if necessary, the Government 
should itself ultimately go into the business of manufacturing 
the products manufactured by the trusts. He would be ready 
now to have the United States Government control the railroads, 
telegraphs, and long-distance telephones. . . . 

1 Messrs. Hillyer and Spalding were lawyers of Atlanta, Georgia, 
summoned to give testimony before the Industrial Commission. They 
were both hostile to the trusts. 



Entering the Tzventieth Century 571 

Mr. Spalding thinks that the trusts are a national question ; 
the remedy must be a national one. He believes that it is prac- 
ticable to enact national legislation which will forbid any trust 
to put down prices so as to destroy competition or to put them 
up to a point of extortion. . . . He thinks that trusts might be 
abolished by Congress by a law similar to that which broke up 
the lottery business. They might be forbidden to use the mails 
or be forbidden to ship their products across State lines. If a 
trust should build a plant in every State to supply the wants 
in that State in order to evade the above-mentioned law, that 
would do away with many of the offensive features of the combi- 
nations. The trusts should certainly give publicity to their oper- 
ations, and he would favor any methods of dealing with them 
which could constitutionally be adopted, either under the power 
to regulate interstate commerce or under the taxing power. 

The most scathing indictment of the '' crime " of child 120. The 
labor in the factories, mines, and sweatshops of this coun- ^^^^^ 
try v^as made by United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge [520] 
of Indiana in an elaborate speech occupying three sessions 
of the Senate (January 23, 28, 29, 1907). The speech was 
in support of an amendment to a bill before the Senate 
regulating child labor in the District of Columbia, the 
amendment providing that ''no carrier of interstate com- 
merce shall transport or accept for transportation from one 
State or Territory to any other State or Territory ... the 
products of any factory or mine in which children under 
14 years of age are employed or permitted to work." ^ 
In the course of his speech Senator Beveridge cited a 
great number of cases of child labor described by visi- 
tors to mills and mines. We select {a) the testimony of 
Mr. John Spargo on the work of boys in the breakers of 
the Pennsylvania coal mines ; {b) that of Miss Irene Ashby 
on the labor of children in the cotton mills of the South. 

1 Congressional Record, 59th Congress, 2d session, Part II, p. 1552. 



5/2 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

(a) 

According to the census of 1900, there were 25,000 boys 
under 16 years of age employed in and around the mines and 
quarries of the United States. In the state of Pennsylvania 
alone — the state which enslaves more children than any other 
— there are thousands of little "breaker boys" employed, many 
of them not more than 9 or 10 years old. The law forbids the 
employment of children under 14, and the records of the mines 
generally show that the law is "obeyed." Yet in May, 1905, 
an investigation by the national child labor committee showed 
that in one small borough of 7000 population among the boys 
employed in breakers 35 were 9 years old, 40 were 10, 45 were 
II, and 45 were 12 — over 150 boys illegally employed in one 
section of boy labor in one small town ! . . . 

Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and danger- 
ous. Crouched over the chutes, the boys sit hour after hour, 
picking out the pieces of slate and other refuse from the coal as 
it rushes past to the washers. From the cramped position they 
have to assume most of them become more or less deformed 
and bent-backed, like old men. . . . The coal is hard, and acci- 
dents to hands, such as cut, broken, or crushed fingers, are 
common among the boys. Sometimes there is a worse accident. 
A terrified shriek is heard, and a boy is mangled and torn in 
the machinery, or disappears in the chute, to be picked out later 
smothered and dead. Clouds of dust fill the breakers and are 
inhaled by the boys, laying the foundations for asthma and 
miner's consumption. 

I once stood on a breaker for half an hour and tried to do 
the work a 12-year old boy was doing day after day, for ten 
hours at a stretch, for 60 cents a day. The gloom of the breaker 
appalled me. Outside the sun shone brightly, the air was pel- 
lucid, and the birds sang in chorus with the trees and the rivers. 
Within the breaker there was blackness, clouds of deadly dust en- 
folded everything, the harsh grinding roar of the machinery and 
the ceaseless rushing of coal through the chutes filled the ears. 

I tried to pick out the pieces of slate from the hurrying 
stream of coal, often missing them ; my hands were bruised and 



Entering the Twetttieth Centtiry 573 

cut in a few minutes. I was covered from head to foot with 
coal-dust, and for many hours afterwards I was expectorating 
some of the small particles of anthracite I had swallowed. I 
could not do that work and live ; but there were boys of i o and 
12 years of age doing it for 50 and 60 cents a day. Some of 
them had never been inside a school ; few of them could read 
a child's primer. . . . From the breakers the boys graduate to 
the mine depth, where they become door tenders, switch boys 
or mule drivers. Here, far below the surface, the work is still 
more dangerous. 

Here are three of them — three of the little slaves of capital, 
typical of the 20,000 children under 14 now toiling out their 
lives in the textile riiills of the South. Mattie, the little one 
standing beside me, is 6 years old. She is a spinner. Inside a 
cotton mill for 12 hours a day she stands in the 4-foot passage- 
way between t^e spinning frames where the cotton is spun from 
coarser into fine threads. As it comes down from the roping 
above now and then it breaks at some part of the long frame, 
and her baby fingers join the thread and set the bobbin moving 
again. From daylight to dark she is in the midst of the ceaseless 
throb and racket of machinery. When I first met her it was 
Christmas eve — the eve of the children's festival, when the 
whole of Christendom celebrates the birth of the Child whose 
coming was to bring freedom to mankind, not to speak of free- 
dom to children. She was crying, and when I asked her the 
reason, said, between her sobs, that she wanted a doll that would 
open and shut its eyes. " When would you play with it ? " I 
asked the little toiler, whose weary eyelids were ready to close 
over her tired eyes directly the long day's work was over. 

" I should have time a-plenty on Sunday," replied the little 
slave, whose daily wage of 10 cents helped to swell the family 
income. There are thousands like her in the South. 

Sally is only 9. Look into her worn face ; not a trace of 
childhood's glad msoudajice about it. It never changes from 
that fixed expression save when a wan smile crosses it in response 
to a kind word. For three long years she has done the same 



574 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

thing that little Mattie is only beginning. A few weeks before 
this picture was taken she broke down completely with nervous 
collapse. Continuous work, the hot, unhealthy mill atmosphere, 
proved too much for her childish brain. She could neither stand 
nor speak, and her limbs were shaken by convulsive movements. 
When this picture was taken she was slowly regaining a feeble 
kind of health, and in a week or two more would be back at her 
endless toil. There are thousands like her in the South. 

I do not know how old Jack is. He does not know himself. 
He does not know anything except that he has worked ever 
since he can remember. I think he may be about 1 1 . . . . 

This is the horror and wrong which is hidden behind the cold, 
printed words, '' child-labor legislation." These are American 
children, dragged into mills when scarcely out of their babyhood, 
without education, without opportunity, being robbed of health, 
morally and physically ; forced to labor as in the days of negro 
slavery negro children never were. With their baby hands these 
little slaves are undermining the liberty of the future, not only 
of the cotton operatives of the South, but of the American 
working people. . . . 

A clerk in a cotton mill told me that little boys turned out at 
2 in the morning for some trivial fault, afraid to go home, would 
beg him to allow them to sleep on the office floor. 

In Georgia it is a common sight to see the children of cotton 
operatives stretched on the bed dressed as they came from the 
mills in the morning, too weary to do anything but fling them- 
selves down for a rest. . . . Only a few weeks ago I stood at 
10.30 at night in a mill in Columbia, S.C., controlled and owned 
by Northern capital, where children who did not know their own 
ages were working from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. without a moment for 
rest or food, or a single cessation of the maddening racket of 
the machinery, in an atmosphere insanitary and clouded with 
humidity and lint. 

The physical, mental and moral effects of these long hours of 
toil and confinement on the children are indescribably sad. Mill 
children are so stunted that every foreman, as you enter the 
mill, will tell you that you cannot judge their ages. ... A doctor 
in a city mill, who has made a special study of the subject, tells 



Entering the Tiventieth Century 575 

me that i o per cent of the children who go to work before 1 2 
years of age, after five years contract active consumption. The 
lint forms in their lungs a perfect cultivating medium for tuber- 
culosis, while the change from the hot atmosphere of the mill to 
the chill night or morning air often brings on pneumonia, which 
frequently, if not the cause of death, is the forerunner of 
consumption. . . . 

The number of accidents to those poor little ones who do 
not know the danger of machinery is appalling. ... In one mill 
city in the South a doctor told a friend that he had personally 
amputated more than a hundred babies' fingers mangled in the 
mill. A cotton merchant in Atlanta told me he had frequently 
seen mill children without fingers or thumb and sometimes 
without the whole hand. So frequent are these accidents that in 
some mills applicants for employment have to sign a contract 
that in case of injury in the mill the company will not be held 
responsible, and parents or guardians sign for minors. . . . 

All holidays are '' made up " in South Carolina. A strike 
occurred in one mill among some organized employees because 
they were required to make up Labor Day beforehand. They 
were locked out and starved into submission. In Alabama the 
children in the mills are required to work Thanksgiving Day. 
In Georgia a child missing Saturday — a short day — loses one- 
sixth of her week's wages. The wages paid to these children 
bear out what I have said in regard to child labor keeping wages 
low. Many toil for 10 cents a day. The average wage in North 
Carolina of the children under 14 is 22 cents a day. ... I know 
of babies working for 5 and 6 cents a day. ... In one large 
mill worked by Northern capital, in Alabama, a widow and three 
children, aged respectively 12, 9, and 8, worked for 47 cents a 
day between them. . . , 

It is a serious charge to make that the mill owners of the 
South, a cultured and frequently religious class, are perpetuating 
this horrible system, but I am afraid there is no doubt of it. I 
started my investigations with a good deal of sympathy with 
those captains of industry, who are facing all the risks of the 
establishment and upbuilding of a great trade. The personal 
courtesy and kindness many of them showed me almost blinded 



576 History of the Reptiblic since the Civil War 

me at first to the meaning of their opposition to the enactment 
of any child-labor law. My sympathy, however, has been worn 
very thin by the deceptions and evasions to which they lend 
themselves on this subject. Some, no doubt, honestly believe in 
the validity of the reasons they advance for child labor — it is so 
easy to believe a theory very much to our own interest — but the 

majority know better, especially men from the North and East 

For eighteen months I have acted as the special agent for the 
American Federation of Labor on child-labor legislation in the 
Southern States. ... I visited twenty-four mills in Alabama 
before the . . . end of January, 190 1. The state of affairs I 
discovered was truly appalling. In every one of these mills 
there were children under 1 2 years of age working from 1 1 to 
12 hours a day. Six mills out of the twenty -four had worked 
within a year at night. In the spinning rooms, brilliantly lighted 
with electric lights, fitted with the latest machinery, turning out 
hour after hour the product which is making huge profits, were 
to be found little children working from dark until long past 
dawn, kept awake by cold water being dashed into their faces. 

121. The The insurgent movement began in the protest of Sena- 

the^Progres- ^or La Follette and a group of reformers in Congress 
sive party, against President Taft, v^hose '' complete surrender to the 

Chicago, . 

Augusts, legislative reactionary program of Aldrich and Cannon 
^^^^ and the discredited representatives of special interests who 

^ ^ had so long managed congressional legislation, rendered 
it utterly impossible for the Progressive Republicans of 
the country to support him for reelection." ^ In January, 
191 1, these men formed the National Progressive Repub- 
lican League. The movement gathered strength rapidly. 
In April the league decided to enter the contest for the 
presidential nomination of 191 2 with a candidate ^ opposed 

1 Robert M. La Follette, Autobiography, 191 3, p. 476. 

2 La Follette, whose "Autobiography" is a full source for the early 
history of the Progressive movement, was the " logical " candidate, and 
was publicly indorsed for the presidency by the Progressives in October, 
191 1. But when Roosevelt, in a speech at Columbus, Ohio, in February, 



Enteri7tg the Tzventieth Century 577 

to Taft. When they failed to get control of the Republican 
convention at Chicago, in June, 19 12, they seceded under 
Roosevelt's leadership and formed the new Progressive 
party, which carried seven states and polled 4,123,206 
votes at the election in November. The platform of the 
party, adopted at the convention in Chicago, August 5, 
191 2, is the best statement of the principles of the radical 
reformers of the new century. 

The conscience of the people in a time of grave national 
problems has called into being a new party, born of the nation's 
awakened sense of justice. 

We of the Progressive Party here dedicate ourselves to the 
fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain 
that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, 
whose foundations they laid. 

We hold, with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, that 
the people are the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its pur- 
poses and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its 
intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. In ac- 
cordance with the needs of each generation the people must 
use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal oppor- 
tunity and industrial justice, to secure which this government 
was founded and without which no republic can endure. 

This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its re- 
sources, its business, its institutions, and its laws should be uti- 
lized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote 
the general interest.-^ It is time to set the public welfare in the 
first place. 

1912, came out for the Progressive program, his greater prestige and 
popularity carried him to the fore as the standard bearer of the new- 
movement. La Follette's bitter comments on his " demagogism " and 
" mock heroics " may be read in the " Autobiography," especially 
pp. 480, 543, 551, 700, 740. 

1 For the most radical proposition for the alteration of the institu- 
tions and laws of a state since the foundation of our government, see 
the plan of Mr. W. S. U'Ren and the Peoples Power League of Oregon 
outlined in Herbert Croly, Progressive Democracy, pp. 291-302. 



578 History of tJie Republic since the Civil War 

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and 
to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both 
the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to 
promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of cor- 
rupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish 
purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an 
invisible government owning no allegiance and alleging no re- 
sponsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible govern- 
ment, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business 
and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of 
the day. ... 

Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed 
by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the 
instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a 
new and nobler commonwealth. This declaration is our cove- 
nant with the people, and we hereby bind the party and its 
candidates in state and nation to the pledges made herein. 

The Progressive Party . . . declares for direct primaries for 
the nomination of state and national officers, for nation-wide 
preferential primaries for candidates for the Presidency, for the 
direct election of United States Senators by the people ; and 
we urge on the states the policy of the short ballot with respon- 
sibility to the people secured by the initiative, referendum, and 
recall. . . . 

Up to the limit of the Constitution and later by amendment 
of the Constitution ... we advocate bringing under effective 
national jurisdiction those problems which have expanded beyond 
the reach of the individual states. It is as grotesque as it is 
intolerable that the several states should, by unequal laws in 
matters of common concern, become competing commercial 
agencies, barter the lives of their children, the health of their 
women, and the safety and well-being of their working people 
for the profit of their financial interests. . . . 

The Progressive Party, believing that no people can justly 
claim to be a true democracy which denies political right on ac- 
count of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage 
to men and women alike. . . . 



Entering the Twentieth Century 579 

The Progressive Party demands such restriction of the power 
of the courts as shall leave to the people the ultimate authority 
to determine fundamental questions of social welfare and public 
policy. To secure this end, it pledges itself to provide : — 

(i) That when an act passed under the police power of the 
state is held unconstitutional under the state constitution 
by the courts, the people, after an ample interval for delib- 
eration, shall have an opportunity to vote on the question 
whether they desire the act to become law, notwithstanding 
such decision. 

(2) That every decision of the highest appellate court of a 
state declaring an act of the legislature unconstitutional on the 
ground of its violation of the Federal Constitution shall be 
subject to the same review by the Supreme Court of the 
United States as is now accorded to decisions sustaining such 
legislation. . . . 

The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation of 
human resources through an enlightened measure of social and 
industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in 
state and nation for — 

Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial ac- 
cidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemploy- 
ment, and other injurious effects incident to modern industry ; 

The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the 
various occupations, and the exercise of the public authority 
... to maintain such standards. 

The prohibition of child labor ; minimum wage standards for 
working women ; . . . the general prohibition of night work for 
women, and the establishment of an eight-hour day for women 
and young persons ; one day's rest in seven for all wage-workers; 
the eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four hour industries ; 
the abolition of the convict contract labor system; publicity 
as to wages, hours, and conditions of labor ; full reports upon 
industrial accidents and diseases. . . . 

The development and prosperity of country life are as im- 
portant to the people who live in the cities as they are to the 
farmers. . . . We pledge our party to foster the development 



58o Histojy of the Republic since the Civil War 

of agricultural credit and cooperation, the teaching of agricul- 
ture in schools, the agricultural college extension, the use of 
mechanical power on the farm. . . . 

We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal 
Government dealing with the public health into a single national 
health service. . . . 

We demand that the test of true prosperity shall be the 
benefits conferred thereby on all the citizens, not confined to 
individuals or classes, and that the test of cooperate efficiency 
shall be the ability better to serve the public. . . . 

We therefore demand a strong national regulation of inter- 
state corporations. . . . The existing concentration of vast 
wealth under a corporate system, unguarded and uncontrolled 
by the nation, has placed in the hands of a few men enormous, 
secret, irresponsible power over the daily life of the citizen — a 
power insufferable in a free government and certain of abuse. 
. . . We urge the establishment of a strong federal administra- 
tive commission of high standing, which shall maintain perma- 
nent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in 
interstate commerce, doing for them what the Government now 
does for the national banks, and what is now done for the rail- 
roads by the Interstate Commerce Commission. . . . 

The natural resources of the nation must be promptly devel- 
oped and generously used to supply the people's needs, but we 
cannot allow them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized, or con- 
trolled against the general good. . . . Agricultural lands in the 
national forests are, and should remain, open to the genuine set- 
tler. . . . We believe that the remaining forests, coal and oil 
lands, water powers, and other natural resources ... be retained 
by the state or nation, and opened to immediate use under laws 
which will encourage development and make to the people a 
moderate return for benefits conferred. . . . 

The Panama Canal, built and paid for by the American 
people, must be used primarily for their benefit. We demand 
that the canal shall be so operated as to break the transporta- 
tion monopoly now held and misused by the transcontinental 
railroads by maintaining sea competition with them, that ships 
directly or indirectly owned or controlled by American railroad 



Ente7'ing the TiveiitietJi CeiiUiry 581 

corporations shall not be permitted to use the canal, and that 
American ships engaged in coastwise trade shall pay no tolls. 

The Progressive Party will favor legislation having for its 
aim the development of friendship and commerce between the 
United States and Latin-American nations. 

We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize con- 
ditions of competition between the United States and foreign 
countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which 
shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living. Prima- 
rily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay 
envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves 
protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in vio- 
lation of federal law. . . . We demand tariff revision because 
the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. 
. . . The Republican organization is in the hands of those who 
have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise 
of necessary downward revision.^ The Democratic Party is com- 
mitted to the destruction of the protective system through a 
tariff for revenue only — a policy which would inevitably pro- 
duce wide-spread industrial and commercial disaster. . . . 

We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a national means 
of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to govern- 
ment, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a federal 
law as will tax large inheritances. . . . We favor the ratifica- 
tion of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the 
Government power to levy an income tax.^ 

The Progressive Party deplores the survival in our civilization 
of the barbaric system of warfare among nations, with its enor- 
mous waste of resources even in time of peace and the conse- 
quent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. 

We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute 
judicial and other peaceful means of settling international 
differences. 

1 This sentence refers to the failure of the Payne-Aldrich Act of 
1909 to make any appreciable reduction in the tariff. See Muzzey, An 
American History, p. 614, note i. 

2 Incorporated into the Constitution in 19 13 as the Sixteenth 
Amendment. 



582 History of the Republic since the Civil War 

We favor an international agreement for the limitation of 
naval forces. Pending such agreement, and as the best means 
of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the 
present the policy of building two battleships a year. 

We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citi- 
zenship at home and abroad. . . . We denounce the fatal policy 
of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immi- 
grant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity. 
We favor governmental action to encourage the distribution of 
immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise 
all private agencies dealing with them, and to promote their 
assimilation, education, and advancement. . . . 

We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning 
American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by 
the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the 
Southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate 
soldiers and sailors and their wives and children. . . . 

We demand not only the enforcement of the Civil Service 
Act [of 1883] in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will 
bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, 
marshalls, and all other non-political officers, as well as the 
enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist 
upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency. 

We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods 
of the National Government and a proper coordination of the 
federal bureaus which will increase the economy and efficiency 
of the government service, prevent duplications, and secure 
better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended. . . . 

On these principles and on the recognized desirability of 
uniting the progressive forces of the nation into an organization 
which shall unequivocally represent the progressive spirit and 
policy we appeal for the support of all American citizens, 
without regard to previous political affiliations. 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, Lord, 312 f. 
Abolitionists, 301 f., 318 f., 319 n., 

395. 398 

Aceldama, 33 n. 

Achilles, 344 

Adams, Charles Francis, 419, 
471 n., 473, 475 n. 

Adams, John, 1 38 n. ; envoy in Paris, 
147 n. ; minister to England, 
167 n. 2 ; vice president, 190; 
president, 200 n., 201; rebukes 
French Directory, 202 n. 2, 203 ; 
congratulates son, 258; referred 
to, 498 

Adams, John Quincy, 239; ulti- 
matum to Spain, 241 f . ; on 
Jackson's conduct, 241 n. ; 
" Memoirs," 241 n., 255 f., 276 n., 
294 f., 295 n., 314 n., 329 n.; 
referred to, 306 n. 2, 324, 325 n. 

Adams, Samuel, i2of. 

Adelantado, 15 

Alabama, 400 f., 435, 575 f. 

Alabama, the, 471 f., 476 

Alaska, 477 

Albany, 51, 90, 92 f., 95 

Albany plan of union, the, 94 f. 

Albert, Prince, 417 

Alexander, General E. P., 425 f. 

Alexander, James, 95, 98 

Alexander of Neckam, 5 

Aldrich, Senator N. W., 576 

Alien and Sedition Acts, 205, 207 

Almon, John, 123 n. 

Altgelt, Governor J. P., 530 f. 

Ambrose, Saint, 4, 87 n. 2 

Amendments : Thirteenth, 438 f., 
466 n. 2 ; Fourteenth, 458 f., 
459 n., 466 n. 3 ; Fifteenth, 466 
n. 4 ; Sixteenth, 581 n. 2 

American Colonization Society, 
302 f., 308 n. 



American Federation of Labor, 

576 
Anderson, Major Robert, 401 f. 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 46 f., 48, 50 
Angouleme, Duke of, 245 n. 
Annapolis, 172 
Anti-imperiahsts, 552 f. 
Apia, 522 f. 

Appomattox, 440 f., 460 n., 462 
Arkansas, 15 
Arnold, Benedict, 344 
Arthur, Chester A., 501 f., 508 
Articles of Confederation, 125 n., 

168 and n., 172 and n., 181, 196, 

382 
Ashby, Irene, 571 
Ass/gnats, 489 
Astoria, 260 
Athens, 3 

Atlanta, 462 f., 518, 575 
Augustine, Saint, 87 n. 2 

Bacon, Francis, 248 

Bacon, Nathaniel, 30 f. 

Baltimore, 254, 286, 365 f. 

Bancroft, George, 328 n. 2, 332 f. 

Bank, National, 237, 267 

Barbados, 49 

Barlow, Joel, 204 f. 

Barron, James, 224, 227 
.Bates, Edward, 385 f. and n. 

Baton Rouge, 422 n., 423, 425 

Bayard, James, 533 

Beauregard, General P. G. J., 402, 
406 

Bede, the Venerable, 5 

Benton, Thomas H., on Oregon, 
258 f. ; on expunging resolution, 
269 n. ; attack of, on 54° 40', 
322 f. ; confers with Polk, 327 n., 

331 
Berkeley, Admiral, 226 n. 



583 



584 



Index 



Berkeley, Governor William, 28, 31 

Berlin, 525 and n. 

Bermudas, 144 

Bernard, Governor Francis, 124 

Berwick on Tweed, 73 f. 

Beveridge, Senator Albert J., 571 

" Black codes," the, 453 n. 

Blaine, James G., 466 n. 5, 468 n. ; 
tribute to Garfield, 494 f. ; nom- 
inated in 1SS4, 505, 510; on 
Cleveland's message of 1887, 
51 5 f. 

Blair, Francis P., 385 

Blair, Montgomery, 437 n. 

Block, Adrian, 52 n. 

Blockade, proclamation of, 410 

Blount, Thomas, 225 

Boston, England, 39 

Boston, Mass., 48 f., 114, 212, 251, 
282, 283, 411, 563 

Boutwell, George S., 546 

Bowman, Captain Joseph, 148 f., 

153 
Bradford, Governor William, 34, 55 
Bradshawe, John, 27 
Bragg, General Braxton, 508 
Brazil, 304 

Breckenridge, J. C, 209 
Brewerton, Douglas, 367 
Brewster, William, 35 
Bright, John, 417 f., 418 n., 473 
Brougham, Lord, 312, 314 
Brown, B. Gratz, 471 n. 
Brown, John, 379 n. 
Brownists, 34 n. 
Bryan, William J., 542 f. 
Bryce, James, 265 
Buchanan, James, Secretary of 

State, 327 n., 328, 331, 334; 

minister to England, 353 f., 356 ; 

president, 391 f., 394, 398, 435, 

451 
Buffalo, 509 
Bull Run, 414 

Bunau-Varilla, Philippe, 556, 560 
Burgesses, House of, 24, 27, 32, 

123, 153 
Burgoyne, General John, 143 
Burke, Edmund, I34n. 
Burnaby, Reverend Andrew, 74, 

77 f- 
Burton, Thomas E., 562 



Butler, General B. F., 413 n., 423, 

508 
Byrd, Colonel William, 99 n. 

Cadiz, 55of. 

Cahokia, 149 

Calhoun, John C, in election of 
1824, 255; on tariff of 182S, 
261 f. ; negotiations of, on Texas, 
312, 315 f., 318 n. 3, 319 n.; on 
Mexican war, 334 ; on Wilmot 
Proviso, 348; on slavery, 348 f., 

35o'n-3- 
Calhoun-Davis theory, 359 and 

n. 2 
California, 330, 334 f., 342, 395 n., 

492 
Callender, Guy S., 305, 306 n. 
Cambridge, England, 24, 39 
Cambridge, Mass., 82 f., 130, 133, 

138 
Camden, Lord Chancellor, 121 n. 
Cameron, Simon, 386 and n. 
Canada, 88 n., 92, 107, 259, 351, 

415' 477 
Canning, George, 260, 324 and n., 

325 
Canning, Stratford, 306 n. 2 
Cannon, Joseph G., 579 
Cape Cod, 37, 57 f. 
Cape Diamond, 104 
Cape of Eleven Thousand Virgins, 

12 
Cape of Good Hope, 14, 220 
Cape Henry, 226 
Cape Horn, 212, 220 
Cape Verde Islands, 14 
" Capitulations," the, 6 
Carlisle, John G., 544 
Carmarthen, Lord, 167 n. 2 
Carrington, Colonel Edward, 195 
Carson, Kit, 367 
Cass, Lewis, 360 
Cathay, 7 

Chandler, Senator Zachariah,476f. 
Charles I, king of England, 28 n., 

43' 49' 439 
Charles II, king of England, 27 f., 

38 n., 42 f., 46 f., 49, 66 f ., 88 and 

n.3, 95n. 
Charleston, S.C, 275, 281 n. 2, 

401 f., 563 



Index 



585 



Charlestown, Mass., 82 f. 

Chase, Samuel P., 23811., 386 and 
n., 387. 455 n. 

Chattanooga, 430 

Chesapeake Bay, 26, 33, 224 f. 

Chicago, 329, 384, 505, 507, 526 f., 
542, 576 f. 

Child labor, 287, 571 f., 579 

China, 9, 13, 22 

Cincinnati, 249, 467 f. 

Cincinnatus, 173 

Circular Letter, the, 114, i2of. 

Civil-service reform, 499 f., 582 

Civil War, the, 156, 303 n., 403 n., 
408 f., 481, 485 

Clark, George Rogers, 1 48 f ., 2 1 8 n. 

Clay, Henry, onWarof 1812,227 f.; 
in election of 1824, 255 f.; criti- 
cizes Jackson, 267 f.; letters on 
Texas, 318 and n. 2 ; on Com- 
promise of 1850, 341 n., 497 

Claybourne, William, 26 

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 559 n. 2 

Cleveland, Grover, nominated in 
1884, 505, 507 ; tribute to, 508 ; on 
tariff, 51 if.; in Pullman strike, 
526 f.; in Venezuela, 532 f.; on 
conservation, 560 

Cobb, Howell, 352, 394 f., 398 f., 
451 f., 455 n., 456 

Cobden, Richard, 418 n., 473 

Colbert, 86 and n. 

Colon, 557 f. 

Colonies, American, 72 f., 77 f., 
inf., 164 

Colton, Reverend Walter, 335 

Columbia, S.C, 278, 574 

Columbia River and valley, 212 
and n., 2 58f., 323 f. 

Columbus, 4f., 9f., 22 

Columbus, Diego, 9 

" Commemoration Ode," the, 448 

" Common Sense," 138 

Commonwealth, the English, 26 

Concord, Mass., 129 and n., 132 

Confiscation Acts, 412 

Connecticut, 53, 58 n. 2., 123 

Conservation, 560 f. 

Constitution of the United States, 
recommended by Hamilton, 
168 f., 171 n. 2 and 3; framed, 
172 f.; opinion of Franklin on, 



175 f.; sent to states, 176; objec- 
tions to, 177 f., 180,186; opinions 
of Jefferson and Hamilton on, 
192 f.; violated, 206 f.; ex- 
pounded by Marshall, 235 f. ; 
expounded by Calhoun, 262 f. ; 
expounded by Jackson, 266 f.; 
expounded by Webster, 273 f. ; 
expounded by legislature of 
South Carolina, 277 f. ; ex- 
pounded by Nashville conven- 
tion, 346 f. ; expounded by Lin- 
coln, 382 f.; expounded by Davis, 
435 ; expounded by Progressive 
party, 577 f. ; and slavery, 296 f., 
360 f., 374, 378, 388 f. ; and Su- 
preme Court, 376 n. 2. 

Constitutional convention, 172 f., 
176, 178 n. 

Continental Congress, 115 

Conway, M. D., 138 and n. 

Cooper, Thomas, 261 n. 

Cooper Institute speech, 378, 381 

Corbett, Thomas, 224 

Cornwallis, General Charles, 1 53 f. 

Cotton, John, 39 f. 

Coxe, Tench, i66f., 168 n. 

Crawford, General S. W., 402 n., 

403 
Crawford, William H., 255 f. 
Crittenden, Senator J. J., 389 n. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 26 f. 
Cromwell, Richard, 27 
Cuba, 16, 304, 353 f., 547 f., 550 
Currency, 486 f., 542 f. 
Cutler, Manasseh, 187 

Danckaerts, Jasper, 82 

Dash, Mistress, 187 f. 

Davis, Jefferson, 378, 430 f., 436 f., 

437 n- 
Dawson, Sarah M., 421 f. 
Day, William R., 550 
Deane, Silas, 118, 142, 144 
Decatur, Captain Stephen, 225 
Declaration of Independence, 1 1 5, 

180, 375, 382, 395, 555 
Declaratory Act, the, 120 
" Democracy in America," 265 
Denonville, governor of Canada, 

88 f. 
Depew, Chauncey M., 518 n. 



586 



Index 



De Soto, i5f. 

De Tocqueville, Alexis, 265, 309 f. 
Dewey, Admiral George, 549 f. 
Dickens, Charles, 249 n. 
Dickinson, John, 120, 125 and n., 

133 and n. 
Dinwiddie, Governor Robert, 99 f., 

102, 104 and n. 
Directory, French, 200 f., 205 
"Discourse on Western Planting," 

21 f. 
District of Columbia, 347, 503, 571 
Dix, John A., 295 n. 2 
Dongan, Governor Thomas, '^1 f. 
Doubleday, Abner, 401 
Douglas, Stephen A., 360, 374, 

378, 395 n- 
Douglass, Frederick, 362 n., 365 
Drake, Sir Francis, 18 
Dred Scott Decision, 373 f. 
Duane, James, 168 
Dudley, Thomas, 38 
Dunster, Henry, Si, 82 n. 
Dutch, 51 f., 55 f. 

Eager, Scipio, 460, 463 
Elizabeth, queen of England, 18 f. 
Elvas, gentleman of, 15 
Emancipation Proclamation, 438 
Embargo, 227 
Emigrant Aid Society, 368 
Endicott, John, 38 
" Era of Good Feeling," 235 f. 
Ervingi George W., 239, 241 
Essex, 18 

Evarts, William M., 386 
Everett, Edward, 314 and n. 
" Exposition and Protest," the, 
261 f. 

Faneuil Hall, 344 
Farewell Address, the, 140 n. 
Farragut, Admiral David G., 422 n. 
Federalists, 183 f., 197 f., 205 
Ferdinand I, king of Spain, 7 
Ferdinand VII, king of Spain, 

245 n. 
" Fifty-four- Forty," 322 f. 
Filipinos, 522 f. 
Finland, 74 

Florida, 15, 239 £., 293, 321 and n. 
Foote, Andrew XL, 432 n. 



Fort Crevecoeur, 86 

Fort Frontenac, 86 n., 90 n. 

Fort Good Hope, 57 f. 

Fort Jackson, 422 n. 

Fort Leavenworth, 367 

Fort Moultrie, 401 

Fort Nassau, 52 n. 2 

Fort Orange, 51 

Fort Pitt, 186 

Fort St. Philip, 422 n. 

Fort Sumter, 381, 401 f., 408, 472 

Fort Warren, 421 f. 

Fortress Monroe, 413 n., 436 

France, treaty with, 118, 140, 141 f., 
165; Jefferson in, 192,196; war 
with Austria and Prussia, 196 n., 
199; in American Revolution, 
197 ; our obligation to, 198 f. ; 
rebuked by Adams, 202 n. 2, 2 1 1 ; 
sells us Louisiana, 214, 218 f.; 
war with F.ngland, 222 ; ag- 
gressions on our commerce, 
222 f., 227 f.; invades Spain, 
245 n. ; abolishes slavery in col- 
onies, 319 f. 

Frankfort, 69 

Franklin, Benjamin, 94 ; on Stamp 
Act, iiSf. ; on Hillsborough, 
124, I29n. ; agent in London, 
131 ; recommends Lafayette, 
142 ; negotiations with France, 
142 n., 144, 147 and n., 148, 167 ; 
character, 174; address to con- 
vention, 175 f.; on opportunities 
in America, 183 f.; referred to, 
248 

Frazier, John, 100 f. 

Free- Soil party, 369 f. 

Freedman's Bureau, 45311. 

Freneau, Philip, 195 

Frobisher, Martin, 18 

Fugitive Slave Law, 353, 361, 396 n. 

Fugitive slaves, 362 and n. 2, 363f., 
377 n. 

Fulham Palace, 34 

Gabote (Cabot), Sebastian, 21 f. 
Gadsden, Christopher, i33n. 
Gage, General Thomas, 128 
Garfield, James A., 494 f., 508 
Geneva, 471, 475 n. 
George II, king of England, 135 



Index 



587 



George III, king of England, 1 1 1, 

133 f., 138, 158 
Georgia, 1 5, 137, 173, 294, 307, 352, 

388,39i,394f.,435,45in.,46on., 

461 f., 518, 574 f. 
" Georgia platform," the, 352 f., 

361, 362 n., 390 
Gerard, C. A., 144 f. 
Germantown, 71 
Germany in Samoa, 522 f. 
Gerry, Elbridge, 177, 201 f. 
Gettysburg, 42 5 f., 430, 433 and n. 
Gibbon vs. Ogden, 235 
Gibraltar, Strait of, 3 
Giddings, Joshua, 318 
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 19 f. 
Gist, Christopher, 103 
Gold seekers, 335 f. 
Gordon, General John B., 460 

and n. 
Gordon, William, 128 and n. 
Governor's Island, 54, 61 
Grady, Henry W., 518 and n. 
Granada, 6f. 
Grant, Fred D., 517 
Grant, General U. S., in Civil War, 

432 n., 440 f.; on tour of South, 

452 n., 459, 462 ; president, 466, 

467 n., 470, 472 n., 475 and n., 

477, 485 and n., 508 
Gray, Captain Robert, 212, 214, 

258f. 
'Gray, Senator George, 550 f. 
Greece, 300 
Greeley, Horace, 378 n., 3S5 f., 

471, 497 
Greenbacks, 487 f. 
Greene, General Nathaniel, 155 
Grenville, George, iii, ii8f., 127, 

133 
Gresham, Walter Q., 532 
Guanaham, 7 
Guiana, British, 539, 542 
Gulf of Mexico, 17, 304, 313 

" Habeas Corpus," 47 
Hakluyt, Richard, 15, 18, 20 f. 
Half-King, the, roof. 
Hall, Captain Basil, 250 and n. 
Halstead, Murat, 384 
Hamilton, Alexander, plea for 
constitution, i68f. ; character. 



173 f.; financial measures, 192 

and n. ; opinion of Jefferson, 

I94f. 
Hamilton, Governor Henry, 194 f., 

275, 277 
Hamilton, John, 225 
Hamlin, Hannibal, 400 
Hammond, James H., 394 f. and n. 
Hampton, General Wade, 456 n. 
Hampton Roads, 224 f., 435 f. 
Hancock, Governor John, 137, 

143, 212 
Hanover, House of, 112 
Harrisburg Convention, 255 
Harrison, Benjamin, 560 
Harrisse, Henri, 5 
Hartford, Conn., 57, 59, 60 
Harvard, John, 80 
Harvard College, 80 f., 276 n., 448 
Havana, 547 n. 
Hawkins, John, 18 
Hawkins, Richard, 18 
Hay, John, 550, 556, 560 
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 556 f. 
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 559 n. 2 
Hayes, R. B., 468, 486 
Hayne, Senator Robert Y., 272 
Hayti, 8 n., 351, 354 n. 
Henry, Patrick, 133 n., 178, 210, 

211 n. 
Henry IV, king of France, 106 
Hercules, Pillars of, 3 f. 
Hill, Governor David B., 542 
Hillsborough, Lord, 123 f. 
Hoar, Senator George P\, 546 
Holdernesse, Lord, 99 
Holland, 24, 34 f., 54, 60 
Holy Alliance, 245 n. 2, 537 
Hopkins, Mark, 495 
Hopkins, Stephen, 115 f. 
Houston, D. F., 270 and n. 
Hudson Bay, 98 
Hudson River, 51 and n. 
Humphreys, Colonel, 189 
Hutchinson, Anne, 38 n. 
Hutchinson, Governor Thomas, 

38 f., ii4f. 

" Ichabod," 345 

Illinois, 86, 376 f., 380 n., 395 n., 

481, 483 f-, 530 f. 
Imperialism, 546! 



588 



Index 



Income Tax of 1913, 171 n. 

Independence of the colonies : 
arguments for, i38f. ; unfavor- 
able view of, 165 f. 

.Indiana, 395 n., 571 

Indianapolis, 484 

Indies, 7, 9, 15, 157 

Industrial Commission, 566 f. 

Inland Waterways Commission, 
560 f. 

Interstate Commerce Act, 485 n., 
580 

Ireland, 19, 25, 73 f. 

Iroquois, 88, 93, 98 

Isabella, queen of Spain, 10 

Jackson, Andrew : Indian cam- 
paigns, 239 f.; candidate for 
president, 255 f.; character, 
265 f. ; censured by Senate, 
267 f. ; and slavery, 275 f. ; opin- 
ion on Texas^ 320 ; referred to, 
346 n., 392 

Jackson, Miss., 347, 433 

Jacobins, French, 200 

James I, king of England, 34 n., 

yi^ 43 

James II, king of England, 46, 
48 n., 60, 88 

James River, 31 

Jamestown, Va., 15, 24f., 31 f., 302 

Java, 13 

Jay, John, 133 n., 147 n., 171 n. 3, 
172 n. 

Jay Treaty, 200 

Jefferson, Thomas, 30; on petition 
to George III, I33n.; minister 
at Paris, 178 n. 2; plan for gov- 
ernment of West, 180 f.; Sec- 
retary of State, 192 f., 197 n., 
199 ; on Kentucky Resolutions, 
206, 209; as president, 210 n., 
212 f., 218 and n., 221, 227; 
policy, 235, 237 f., 238 n., 259 n.; 
on slavery, 297 n., 301 n.; re- 
ferred to, 498, 544, 577 

Jeffreys, Thomas, 106 

Jerusalem, i^^^ n. 

Jogues, Isaac, 50 f. 

Johnson, Andrew, 451, 452 n., 
453 n-' 455 "•' 456 and n., 457, 
458 



Johnston, General Joseph E., 451 
Juana (Cuba), 7 
Judas, 33 n. 

Kalm, Peter, 74, 751. 

Kansas, 360, 367 f., 369 f., 37 if., 

484 
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 371 f., 376 

n.4 
Kaskaskia, 149 
Kemble, Fanny, 278 f., 280 
Kentucky, 252, 3761., 486, 540 
Kentucky resolutions, 206 
Kieft, Director William, 51, 59 
Kimberley, Rear Admiral, 522 
King, Rufus, 258, 294 f., 307 n., 

320 
King Philip's W ar, 82 n. 
Kingston, 90 n. 
Knox, General Henry, 189 
Knox, Captain John, 104 
Ku-Klux Act, 459 
Ku-Klux Klans, 4591., 467 

La Barre, Governor, 87 f. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 141 f. 

La Follette, Robert M., 576 and n. 

La Salle, Rene Robert Cavelier 
de, 85 f., 102 

Laurens, Henry, 146 

Lawrence, Kans., 367, 369 

Lear, Tobias, 188 

Le Clercq, F'ather, 85 

Lee, Arthur, 1 18, 144 

Lee, Richard Henry, 178 

Lee, Robert E., 425, 430, 433 and 
n., 452 n., 460 n., 477 

Leipzig, 69 

Leopard, the, 224, 226 f. 

Lewis and Clark expedition, 2i8f., 
221 n., 259 f. 

Lexington, Mass., 128 f., 131 f. 

Lexington, Va., 427 

Liberal Republicans, 466 

Liberia, 301 f., 307 n. 

Lincoln, Abraham, on Dred Scott, 
373 f.; Cooper Institute speech, 
378 f.; Springfield speech, 3Son.; 
election, 381; inaugural, 381 f.; 
nomination, 385 f.; effect of 
election, 388 f., 394 ; policy as 
president, 400, 408, 410, 41311., 



Index 



589 



414, 418 n., 433 n., 436 f. ; assas- 
sination, 445 f., 478; views on 
Reconstruction, 454 n., 477 ; re- 
ferred to, 495, 508 f., 555, 577 

Lincoln-Douglas debate, 360, 373, 
374 n., 378 

Liverpool, 254, 279 n., 473 

Liverpool, Lord, 324 

Livingston, Edward, 215 

Livingston, Robert R., 189 

Lisbon, 1 1 

London, 33, 34, 65, 128, 254 

London Company, 37 

Long Island, 54, 59, 61 

Longstreet, General James, 423 

Lords Commissioners of Trade, 

95 n- 
Los Angeles, 'i^y] n. 
Louis XIV, king of France, 88 n., 

91 n. 
Louis XVI, king of France, 143 f. 
Louisburg, 105 
Louisiana, 214 f., 2i6f., 253, 260, 

295, 421, 433, 435 
Lowell, James Russell, 319 n., 391, 

448, 553' 555 
Lowell, Mass., 283 
Loyalists, i53f. 
Luzerne, 147 n. 
Luzon, 550, 554 
Lyons, Lord, 414 n., 415 and n., 

416, 421 n. 

McClellan, General George B.,416 
McCrary, G. H., 485 n. 
McCulloch, Hugh, 493 n. 
McCulloch vs. Maryland, 235 
McDuffie, Senator George, 270 f., 

319 
McGee, W. J., 562 
McKenzie, Sir Alexander, 2 59f. 
McKinley, William, 495 n., 546 f., 

560 
Maclay, Senator William, 190 f. 
McMaster, J. B., 186, 282 f., 337 n. 
Madison, James, I74,i78n.2, 194 f., 

206, 209 f., 222 n., 223 f., 227, 

229 f. 
Madrid, 239 
Magellan, 11, 13 
Maine, 299 
Maluco, 14 



Manhattan, 51, 63 
Manila Bay, 549 f. 
Marcy, William L., 353, 356 
Mardoch ap Owen, 22 
Marietta, Ohio, 186 
Markham, Edwin, 449 
Marryat, Captain, 251 and n. 
Marshall, James A., 339 f. 
Marshall, John, 201 f., 235 
Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee, 235 
" Martin Chuzzlewit," 249 n. 
Martineau, Harriet, 250 n., 280 f. 
Maryland, 31, 77, 90, 92, 168, 237, 

365 
Mason, George, 178 f. 
Mason, John Y., 353, 356, 415, 

421 n. 
Mason and Dixon's line, 362 
Massachusetts, 34, 38, 42 f., 46, 

58 n. 2, 114, 120 f., 123, i24f., 

128, 301, 344, 421 n., 532, 545 
Matamoras, 330 n., 331, 332 n. 
Matan, 13 

Mather, Reverend Cotton, 40 f. 
Mather, Reverend Increase, 48 
Mayflower, the, 34, 37 
Meade, General George B., 433 n. 
Medea, the, 3 
Melampiis, the, 225 f. 
Membre, Father, 85 
Memphis, 16 n. 
Mexico, 313 f., 318 and n. 2, 321, 

328 f., 436, 442 
Michigan, 85 f., 282, 476 
Milan, 4 

Milton, John, 140, 300 
Mississippi, 347, 348 f., 461 
Mississippi River, 15, 85 f., 148 f., 

219 n., 221, 247, 252 f., 260, 282, 

560, 565 
Missouri, 295, 368 f., 376 f., 466 

and n., 468, 471 n. 
Missouri Compromise, 294 f., 305, 

307 n., 359, 368, 376 n. 3 and 4 
Missouri River, 86, 218 f. 
Moires, William, 153 
Moncton, General Robert, 104 f. 
Monroe, James, 178, 200 and n., 

243 f., 302, 303 n., 324 
Monroe Doctrine, 140 n., 239 £., 

243 f., 437, 533 
Monrovia, 303 and n. 



590 



Index 



Montcalm, Sieur de, io6 

Monterey, Cal., 335, ^^1 f. 

Montesquieu, 72 

Montgomery, Ala., 401, 435 

Morris, Robert, 171 n. 3 

Moscoso, Luis de, i6f. 

Mount Vernon, 172 

Mozambique, 14 

Muhlenberg, Major, 239 

Muzzey, D. S., ''American His- 
tory," 91 n., 134 n., 142 n., 167 n., 
192 n., 312 n., 321 n., 342 n., 
350 n., 378 n., 379 "•' 422 n., 
437 n., 453 n., 48511., 525 n., 
539 n., 552 n., 581 n. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 228 f. 

Napoleon III, 437 n. 

Narrows, the, 54 n. 2, 61 n. 

Nashville, Tenn., 346, 350 n. 

National Progressive League, 576 

Navigation Act of 1660, 72 f. 

Nebraska, 360 

Necker, Jacques, 165 

Netherlands, 19 

Neutrality proclamation, 197 f. 

Nevada, 476 

New Amsterdam, 51 f., 62 

New Castle, 69, 70 n. 

New England, 34 f., 37 f., 52 f., 

59 f., 66 
New England Confederation, 58 

n. 2 
"New England's First Fruits," 80 
Newfoundland, 98 
New France, 50, 75 f., 85, 91, 

98 f. 
New Hampshire, 138 n., 395 n. 
New Haven, 58 
New Holland, 51, 58 
New Jersey, 123, 278, 282, 395 n., 

540 
New Mexico, 330, 334, 342, 360 
New Netherland, 51, 59, 60 f. 
New Orleans, 252 f., 422 n., 423 
New York City, 50 f., 138, 237, 

251 f., 254, 278, 280, 283 f., 366, 

378, 406 f., 411, 497, 518 n. 
New York Colony, 46, 50, 87 f., 98 
New York State, 390 f., 395 n., 

545 
Niagara, 90 



Nicolls, Richard, 61 
Non-intercourse acts, 227 
Norfolk, Va., 225 
Norumbega, 22, 23 
Nova Scotia, 98, 157 
Nullification, 208, 265 f., 277 
Nyack, 61 n. 

Occomack, 33 

Odell, Jonathan, 157 

Oglethorpe, James, 291 

Ohio, 376 f., 387, 390 f., 486, 496, 

502, 576 
Ohio Company, 103, 104 n., 1S6, 

204 
Ohio River and valley, 99 f., 253 f. 
"Olive branch" petition, 134 n. 2 
Olney, Richard, 532 f. 
Omnibus bill, 340 f. 
Onis, Don Luis de, 239 f. 
Orders in Council, 228 
Ordinance of 1787, 180 and n. 
Ordway, John, 221 f. and n. 
Oregon, 212 n., 258 f., 322 f. 
Ostend Manifesto, 353 f. 
Oxford, Lord, 30 
Oxford University, 84 n. 
Oyster Bay, 55, 59 

Pacific Ocean, 12, 220, 260 
Packenham, Richard, 312, 315 f., 

327 and n. 
Paine, 138 f. and n. 
Palmerston, Lord, 354 n., 415 and 

n., 472 n. 
Panama, 556, 557, 580 
Pango-Pango, 525 n. 
Panuco, 17 

Paris, 21, 144, 201, 515 
Parker, Captain John, 131 f. 
Parker, Theodore, 344 
Parkman, Francis, 87 n. 3 
Parliament, 27, 72, inf., ii9f., 

134 n. 
Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 69 f. 
Pauncefote, Sir Julian, 536 
I'awnee, 369 f . 
Payne-Aldrich Act, 581 n. 
Peel, Sir Robert, 312 n., 327 and n. 
Pendleton, George IL, 502 f. 
Penn, Richard, 133 
Penn, William, 65, 66, 67 £., 69 f. 



hidex 



591 



Pennsylvania, 67 f., 69, 95, 118, 

125, 243 f., 390 f., 571 f. 
Pensacola, 243 f. 
Peoria, 86 
Personal Liberty Acts, 363, 395, 

396 n. 
Peter the Great, 173 
Petersburg, 427 f. 
Philadelphia, 70, 167, 172, 190, 

195, 200, 247, 251, 254, 278, 280. 

282 f., 335, 336, 411 
Philip II, king of Spain, 22, 35 n. 
Philippine Islands, 546, 549 f. 
Pickering, Thomas, 202 
Pickett, General George £.,4251. 
Pierce, Franklin H., 353, 370 
Pierce, Major William, 173 
Pigapheta, Anthoyne, 11, 14 
Pilgrims, the, 34 
Pinchot, Gifford, 560 
Pinckney, Charles, 297 n. 
Pinckney, Charles C, 201 f. 
Pinkney, William, 295, 299!. 
Pitcairn, Major John, 129!. 
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 

106, 121 n., 260 
Plains of Abraham, 104 
Plymouth, 34 f., 55 f., 58 n. 2, 302 
Polk, James K., 318, 323 n., 327 n., 

328f., 332n., 333n., 336n.,353 
Pompeii, 351 

Port Hudson, 422 n., 432 n., 433 
Portuguese, 14, 15, 21 
Pory, John, 24 f. 
Pownall, Governor Thomas, iii, 

114 
"Present Crisis," the, 319 n. 
Price, Reverend Richard, 163 
Princeton College, 157 
Privy Council, 1 19 
Progressive party, 577 f. 
Proprietary Colonies, 50 f. 
Proud, Robert, 63 and n. 
Ptolemy, 3 
Puerto Rico, 550 
Pulci, 4 

Pullman strike, 526 f. 
Purchas, Samuel, 18 
Puritans, 34 n., 37 f. 

Quaife, M. M., 328 n., 329 
Quakers, 63 f., 78 



Quebec, 104 f. 

Quincy, Josiah, 83 

Quitman, Governor John A., 351 

Railroads, 278 f., 481 f., 485 n., 

526 f. 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 18, 21 
Randall, Richard, 303 f. 
Randolph, Edmund, 177 
Randolph, Edward, 48 n., 49 
Rasieres, Isaac de, 55 
Reconcentrado Order, 547 and n. 
Reconstruction, 45 1 f.,453n.,455f., 

459 
Reeder, Governor Andrew H., 

370 
Repubhcan party, 360, 378, 381, 

385 f., 394 f., 397, 462, 466 f., 

472, 481 f., 505 f., 581 
Restoration of 1660, 28, 39, 42, 72 
Resumption of specie payment, 

485 f. 
Revolution, American, 63, 141, 

148!., 163 f., 197 
Revolution," the " Glorious, 46, 49 
Richmond, Va., 427, 430, 433 
Rio Grande River, 329 f. 
Robertson, James, i55n., 209 
Robinson, John, 34 f., 36 f. 
Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Duke 

of, 187 
Rockingham, Marquis of, 121 n. 
Rocky Mountains, 260, 323 f., 

367 
Rome, 22, 169 n. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 499 and n., 

556 f., 562 f., 577 and n. 
Rush, Richard, 324, 325 n. 
Russell, Lord John, 323 n., 415, 

472 n. 
Russell, Governor William E., 

542 
Russell, W. W., 559 n. 
Russia, 73, 244, 322 n., 323 f., 

420 

St. Augustine, Fla., 240 
St. Joseph, Mo., 370 
St. Lawrence, 21 
St. Marks, Fla., 242 f. 
Salisbury, Lord, 533 f. 
Samoa, 522 f. 



592 



Index 



Sandford, J. F. A., 373 

San Domingo, 356 

San Francisco, 337 n. 

San Lucar, 14 

San Salvador, 7 

Santangel, Luis de, 7 

Saybrook Point, 58 

Schurman, J. G., 553 

Schurz, Carl, 456, 468 f. 

Scott, Dred, 373 f., 376 f. 

Scott, Colonel John, 370 

Seabrook, Governor, 351, 352 n. 

Secession, 343, 346 f., 352 n., 381 f., 

391 f., 394 f., 399, 400 f. 
Seminole War, 240 f. 
Seneca, 3 
Separatists, 34 

Seventh-of-March speech, 341 f. 
Seville, 11,14 

Seward, William H., 385 and n., 
386f., 392 n.,409, 414 n. 2, 41 5 n., 
417, 419 

Seymour, Governor Horatio, 508 

Shakespeare, 248 

Shannon, Governor, 367 

Shawnee Mission, 370 

Shelburne, Lord, 121 n. 

Sheridan, Philip H., 442 

Sherman, John, 486 f., 495, 498 n. 

Shirley, Governor William, 83 

Sillery, 105 

Slavery, criticized by Burnaby, 77 f . ; 
defined by McDuffie, 271; in col- 
onies, 291 f.; and the Missouri 
Compromise, 290 f.; attempts 
to colonize negroes, 301 f.; im- 
port trade after 1808, 302; the 
" peculiar institution," 305 f. ; in 
legislatures of South, 306 f.; 
judged by De Tocqueville, 
309 f., 311 ; in Texas, 313, 314 n.; 
condemned by Giddings, 318 f.; 
condemned by Lowell, 319 n., 

392 n.; approved by Nashville 
Convention, 347 f.; squatter sov- 
ereignty doctrine, 360 f. ; fugi- 
tives from, 362 f. ; in Kansas, 
368 f. ; in Dred Scott Decision, 
374 f.; in territories, 379 f.; and 
Union commanders, 413 n.; dis- 
cussed at Hampton Roads, 
438 f. ; effect of abolition, 452 f. 



Slidell, John, 329 f., 415, 421 n. 

Smith, Goldwin, 540 

Smith, Robert, 225 

Smith, Sydney, 247 

Socinians, 64 

Sons of Liberty, 156 

Soule, Pierre, 353, 35411., 356 

South Carolina, 200 f., 223 f., 27of., 

273, 275 f., 277 f., 306 and n., 

309' 349' 351 n., 381, 397, 399 n., 

435 f-' 574 f- 
Spain, 6, 140, 239 f., 245 n., 25S, 

260, 353 f., 546, 550 f. 
Spanola (Hispaniola), 8 
Spargo, John, 571 
Specie payment, 485 f. 
Springfield, 111., 380 n. 
" Squatter sovereignty," 359 f. 
Stamp Act, iii, 114, ii8f., 120 f., 

Stanton, Edwin M., 440 

Staten Island, 542 n. 2 

Steamboat, 253 f. 

Stephens, Alexander H., 330 n. 2, 

352, 377 n., 388 f., 396 n., 436 f. 
Stephenson, George, 279 n. 
Stevens, Thaddeus, 455 n. 
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 522 f. 
Stewart, Senator William M., 476 
Storey, Moorfield, 551, 552 n. 
Story, Joseph, 235 
Strabo, 3 

Stuarts, 42, 46, 72, 87, 91 n. 
Stuyvesant, Peter, 55, 59, 61, 62 
Sumner, Charles, 418 f., 455 n., 

472 f., 474 n., 475 n- 
Supreme Court, 235, 237, 238 n., 

273 n., 373' 376 n. 4, 467, 494, 562 
Susquehanna, 77 
Sutter, John A., 339 
Swedes, 55, 69 n. 
Swift, Dean Jonathan, 117 

Taft, William H., 576 f. 

Talleyrand, 202 f. 

Tammany Hall, 508 

Taney, Roger B., 374 

Tariff, 260 f., 270 f., 276 f., 305 n., 

51 if., 566 f. 
Tarpley, C. S., 348 f. 
Taxation, ii7f., i7of., i93f., 263 f., 

271 f., 487, 511 f., 550 



Index 



593 



Taylor, Tom, 446 

Taylor, Zachary, 329 f., 348, 350 n., 

351; 436 
Tenniel, John, 446 
Texas, 258, 312 f., 314, 317 and n., 

318 f., 360 n., 519 
Thayer, Eli, 386 
Thomas, Jesse B., 255 
Thule, 4 

Tilden, Samuel J., 508 
Timor, 13, 14 
Tonty, Sieur de, 85 f. 
Tooke, Home, i29n. 
Toombs, Robert, 352, 389 and n. 
Tories, 153 f., i56f., i58f. 
Tower, Charlemagne, Jr., 141 f. 
Townshend Acts, 114, 120, 126 
Trades Unions, 283 f. 
Treaty of Washington, 475 n. 
Trent affair, 414 f. 
Trescott, William H., 200 n. 
Trollope, Anthony, 249 
Trollope, Mrs. F. M., 248 f. 
Troup, George M., 307 
Trumbull, Senator Lyman, 395 
Trusts, 566 f., 580 
Tryon, Governor William, 138 
Tucker, Dean Josiah, 165 f. 
Turkey, 25, 139 
Tutuila, 525 n. 
Tuyl, Baron, 258 
Tyler, John, 318 n. 3, 323 n. 

Upshur, Abel P., 314 

U'Ren, W. S., 577 n. 

Usher, John, 49 

Utah, 360 

Utrecht, Treaty of, 98, 326 

Valladolid, 10 

Van Braam, Jacob, 99 

Van Buren, 317 and n. 

Vane, Sir Harry, 38 n. 

Vasa, Gustavus, 173 

Vaudreuil, Marquis de, 107 

Venantius, Fortunatus, 87 n. 

Venezuela, 533 f. 

Vera Cruz, 330 

Vergennes, Count of, 142 n., 145, 

147 
Verzin (Brazil), 11 
Vicksburg, 423, 430, 432 n., 433 



Vilas, Senator W. F., 542 f. 

Vincennes, 148 f. 

Virginia, 15, 24 f., 26 f., 28, 31, 37, 
53, 90, 92, 99 f., 123, 178 and n., 
205 f., 362, 427, 433, 440 f. 

Wabash, the, 148 

Wade, Benjamin, 455 n. 

Wales, 73 f. 

"War-hawks," the, 229 

Warren, Joseph, 132 

Washington, George, to Franklin, 
94 ; visits French forts, 98 f. ; 
J ournal of, 99 f . ; fight with Junon- 
ville, 104 n. ; commands conti- 
nental army, 133,138; denounces 
Loyalists, 156; denounced by 
Loyalists, 1 58 f . ; on Revolution, 
163; in Constitutional Conven- 
tion, 167; character, 169 n. 2, 
173 ; signs Constitution, 177; as 
president, 188 f., 191, 192, 197 f., 
200 ; commander in French war, 
204; appeals to Henry, 2iof.; 
letter to Gray, 212, 214; referred 
to, 248, 381, 395 

Washington's Farewell Address, 
140 n., 143 

Watertown, Mass., 130 f. 

Webster, Daniel, reply to Hayne, 
272 f.; seventh-of-March speech, 
341 f. ; to Massachusetts, 341 n. ; 
on slavery, 342 n.; on secession, 
343' 346 and n., 379 n. 

Weyler, Valeriano, 547 n., 554 

Wheeler, H. C, 481 

Whitfield, Reverend George, 84 n. 

Whiting, Samuel, 39 

Whitman, Walt, 445 

Whittier, John Greenleaf, 345 

Wigfall, Senator, 383 n., 387 n., 

405 
Wilkes, Captain Charles, 420 
WilliamllL king of England,48 n., 

91 n., 95 n. 
William of Orange, 35 n. 
Williams College, 495 f- 
Wills Creek, 100, 103 
Wilmot Proviso, 342, 348, 350 n., 

359 and n. 
Wilson, James, 13311., 175 
Wilson, General J. H., 45 



594 



Index 



dp 



Wilson, Governor J. L., 306 

Wilson, Woodrow, 559 n. 2 

Winsor, Justin, 6 

Winthrop, John, governor of Con- 
necticut, 53 

Winthrop, John, governor of Mas- 
sachusetts, ^^ 

Wirt, William R., 306 n. 2 

Wise, Henry A., 427 

Wise, John S., 427, 444 n. 



Woodford, Stuart L., 546 f. 
Wolfe, General James, 104 f. 

XYZ affair, 200 f. 

Yeardley, Sir George, 24 
York River, 31 
Yorktown, 147, i 53 f. 

Zamal (Samar), 13 



LE.- ilti^U 



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